Random Midnight Thoughts

A Good Day

2011-07-08T15:07:00.002-05:00

Had a photo shoot this morning, and a consulting "gig" in the afternoon. Heading off on the bike to Sioux Falls with some friends to see a band. All in all a rather successful day!

Whines of the Day

2011-07-07T09:04:00.000-05:00

I keep planting birdseed, but all that comes up are weeds.

I hate that I often base my designs around the limitations of my Internet speed. If there are any Iowa politicians out there - WE NEED INFRASTRUCTURE OUT HERE. Our only options were WildBlue and Hughes.net. We went with WildBlue because they swore up and down they'd triple the speed and lift the usage limits "sometime in the first quarter of 2011." We're still waiting.

I hate how everyone complains about Verizon's cell phone service, yet Verizon does nothing about it. It's amazing how "the acreage you're buying is right in the middle of a strong 3G coverage area" turns into, "we're sorry, we've never had good coverage out there" as soon as you sign on the dotted line...

I'm not happy that my blogs aren't showing up in Facebook as notes like they should. I realize that both Blogger and Facebook are free, but shouldn't they work as advertised nonetheless?

I hate that my Internet Service Provider makes me use an outdated version of a browser I don't like, because "all the new stuff they released doesn't work with our system."

Fourth of July Weekend

2011-07-04T21:19:00.001-05:00

A busy weekend!

2011-07-04T18:48:00.000-05:00

Saw Los Lonely Boys (as well as several other bands, notably the three-trombone funky rock group Bonerama and Ben Harper) this weekend.

I liked this song.

Serenity, with Bugs

2011-07-02T07:41:00.000-05:00

Last December Dagmar and I moved to our acreage. It's early July now, so we've lived here just over six months. This home seems so natural to us it feel like we've lived here for years, yet every day we're surprised by some little aspect of the land.

During the winter we were surprised at how often the wind came howling from the southeast. The wind never comes from the southeast - it always, always comes from the northwest.

During the spring we were surprised at how often the wind came howling from the southeast.

During the early summer we were surprised at how often the wind came howling from the southeast.

Last night we were surprised - the wind quit howling from the southeast for a few hours. Magically the fireflies came out. Not just a few, but hundreds - thousands - happily blinking away in our yard, the grove, and mostly out over the fields. Sometimes it seemed like the lightning bugs were blinking randomly, but other times it almost seemed as if they were creating purposeful art - a wave of light coming from the west, sweeping up through our yard into the pasture to fade out up over the fields a quarter mile away. Neither Dagmar nor I had ever seen anything like it.

When I was a child there was a certain spot in our grove, a small clearing, where there would often be fireflies. That's where you would see them first, dancing in their own little meadow, surrounded by trees. They signaled the depth of summer to me. All is right with the world when there were fireflies dancing in the meadow - no wind, no rain, warm weather, calmness.

When I grew up and moved to Le Mars, I missed the fireflies. I'd see them occasionally in the small town, blinking in back yards as I'd drive by, intent on whatever errand I was running before shutting myself back into a windowless apartment. Later, when I moved to Sioux City, I gradually forgot about fireflies altogether. You simply never saw them. In our old neighborhood we didn't feel safe sitting outdoors or going for leisurely walks - too many drunks, thugs, gang-bangers. And if there were any fireflies in the city, their lazy glow was drowned out by the constant stream of headlights, streetlights, the haze coming from the kiln factory across the street.

I never imagined, as a child, that I'd lose the magic of fireflies. And until just a few months ago, I never imagined I'd find that magic back again.

Unabashed

2011-06-30T16:24:00.001-05:00

My opinion on this:

An e-mail I just sent to John Boehner (R), Speaker of the House of Representatives:

Mr. Speaker,

Please, I ask you to work for America. We need to get the budget under control, and that means raising funds. Please follow the President's lead and close the tax loopholes on the very wealthy and those who own their own jets. I realize that paying taxes on a private jet, much as I have to pay taxes on my Toyota Yaris, can be a hardship, but it's one that most average Americans bear with grace.

We have the lowest tax rate of any industrialized nation, and the lowest tax rate in America since the 1950s. We NEED the revenue that could be raised by closing tax loopholes on the wealthiest of our citizens.

I ask you, please work for America rather than for the Republican agenda. I'm asking the Democrats to end the partisan bickering as well. To be honest, both the Republicans and the Democrats are acting like self-important fools. Those of us who live in this fine country are counting on all of you to get your act together and do your jobs. Please, work together on this issue.

Back in the Saddle

2011-06-29T11:36:00.003-05:00

Facebook's out, at least for now. I'm done messing with it for a while, and I'm going back to my first love, blogging. If you're seeing this on Facebook, that's simply because I have an automagic feed set up from years ago to publish my blog posts as notes on Mr. Zuckerberg's Wondrous Money-Maker. If you'd like to see the original blog posts with photos and everything, just go to www.radloffs.net and click on "Blog."

There are myriad reasons why I'm going to go back to blogging in lieu of Facebooking, but the main reason is that I'm simply fed up with arguing with people who are strong on opinions but weak on facts and logic. I hate to say it, but I'm feeling kinda, well, bullied into silence. Whenever I'd say anything remotely political on my wall I'd get hammered - often with arguments no more sophisticated than a regurgitation of yesterday's FOX opinions*. I'm not sure whatever happened to "free speech" in America, but it seems I'm having problems with it...

Don't get me wrong - everyone is entitled to an opinion. The problem is that I find myself wondering if everyone SHOULD be entitled to an opinion. To use an extreme example, when a professor studies politics and history, he reads books, studies philosophy, dig into the backgrounds of political thoughts and movements, has a grasp of political trends and shifts throughout history and what the consequences of those trends have been. I'd be more apt to listen to his opinion than that of someone who no education, no background in history, who gets his ideas from the talking heads on television rather than from his own study, whose political views are more a reflection of their personal insecurities than of a broad worldview... Yet on Facebook both are given equal time.

I'm tired of everything being an argument. I'm tired of having people think their opinion is fact. I'm tired of people believing their opinions mean more than facts. Especially when I take the time to look up the facts and be sure of them before opening my mouth. Most of the time.

Not too long ago I posted a plea for compromise on Facebook, a call for Democrats and Republicans to work together for the betterment of the United States. Oddly enough, people argued with me. There's a knee-jerk reaction to fight violently for "your side," be it progressive or conservative. People forget that "your side" and "my side" are one and the same - America. The divisiveness is instinctive, and increasingly worrisome.

An example: my wife and I were talking to an eleven-year-old boy the other day about professional football. He liked the Vikings, thought Green Bay was okay, but when my wife mentioned she used to watch the Washington Redskins when she lived in D.C., the boy jumped to his feet angrily. "I would never want to live in Washington," he said. "That's too close to that Barack Obama." Hatred flashed in his eyes. Hatred from... what? Where does an 11-year-old learn to hate a politician? It would be a rare 11-year-old to hold a truly informed opinion about such matters. I'm glad the boy is aware enough of his country to know who the President is and seems to be interested, but I'm sad that those who are teaching him seem to be teaching him instinctive party division rather than independent, critical thought.**

As much as the political divisiveness and partisan bickering bothers me, I'm just as bothered by my perceived notion of how Facebook etiquette should be handled. Personally, I split my postings between personal and political. When I posted political gunk, most of the time I simply posted a link to some tidbit of information or opinion I thought interesting. Once in a while I'd post an original thought, but those have been increasingly rare as I have little stomach for argument these days. It seems that people have no problem hijacking a thread on my wall - posting argument after argument, comment after comment. Personally, I dislike that. When I see someone else writing or linking to a political thought, I may comment once - rarely twice. I try very hard to be concise, state my position, and be done. I respect that the other person may not have my ideals, and aspire to not argue. In a way I feel it's akin to being invited to someone's home - if my host states an opinion, I'll politely respond with my opinion. Once. Unless invited, I don't pursue an argument in someone else's house. When I'm in my own home, I feel quite free to air my opinion - until I get the feeling that my guest doesn't share my opinion, at which point I generally restate my position quickly and change the subject. (There are, of course, exceptions - I feel free to argue politics politely with some friends, but most of the time I really try to be sensitive to "enough is enough.")

So, for the time being, I'm done with Facebook - for the most part. I'll keep up my business' page, and I'm sure I'll comment occasionally via my phone. But I'm not gonna lurk. I'm not gonna argue. Enough is enough. Feel free to comment on this note in Facebook, but please don't expect me to respond. If you'd like to comment on my blog, again, just go to www.radloffs.net and click on "Blog."

*Did you know that FOX News is banned in Canada? They have laws against people lying on TV. It came up for a vote not too long ago, and the people of Canada overwhelmingly opted to keep the law as it is rather than let a FOX-style news show go on the air.

**Would I have been equally upset had he jumped up and said, "I'd love to live in Washington - I might be able to meet President Obama"? No, probably not. While no President is deserving of blind devotion, all Presidents are worthy of our respect. Except maybe... Well, no, even Taft.

New Digs

2010-12-23T06:58:00.001-06:00

Well, it's been two weeks since we've moved to our new house out in the country. By now I'd hoped to have photos to show y'all, but we still don't have Internet access, other than our cell phones. Wish us luck!

Election Day

2010-11-01T09:02:00.000-05:00

A friend passed this along to me...

Questions:

What was the average monthly private sector job growth in 2008, the final year of the Bush presidency, and what has it been so far in 2010?

What was the Federal deficit for the last fiscal year of the Bush presidency, and what was it for the first full fiscal year of the Obama presidency?

What was the stock market at on the last day of the Bush presidency? What is it at today?

Which party's candidate for speaker will campaign this weekend with a Nazi reenactor who dressed up in a SS uniform?

Answers:

In 2008, we lost an average of 317,250 private sector jobs per month. In 2010, we have gained an average of 95,888 private sector jobs per month. (Source) That's a difference of nearly five million jobs between Bush's last year in office and President Obama's second year.

In FY2009, which began on September 1, 2008 and represents the Bush Administration's final budget, the budget deficit was $1.416 trillion. In FY2010, the first budget of the Obama Administration, the budget deficit was $1.291 trillion, a decline of $125 billion. (Source) Yes, that means President Obama has cut the deficit -- there's a long way to go, but we're in better shape now than we were under Bush and the GOP.

On Bush's final day in office, the Dow, NASDAQ, and S&P 500 closed at 7,949, 1,440, and 805, respectively. Today, as of 10:15AM Pacific, they are at 11,108, 2,512, and 1,183. That means since President Obama took office, the Dow, NASDAQ, and S&P 500 have increased 40%, 74%, and 47%, respectively.

The Republican Party, whose candidate for speaker, John Boehner, will campaign with Nazi re-enactor Rich Iott this weekend. If you need an explanation why this is offensive, you are a lost cause.

:::

This post originally appeared here on Friday, October 29.

An Open Letter

2010-10-12T14:22:00.001-05:00

Dear Lord,

We love you, but I'm pissed as hell at you right now.

I don't understand why you're doing this, I don't see what good can come of it, I don't see what I'm supposed to learn from this, and I'm mad at you for putting all of us through this. I'm angry. Things were just fine the way they were, but now you gotta come along and take Kim, and it doesn't seem fair.

I understand that the deepest lessons are the most painful and take the longest to understand, but you gotta understand that we're all confused, hurt, and angry right now, and we'll probably be sore at you for this for quite a while.

Yes, I'm feebly waving my fist at you. Don't pretend you don't see me down here.

Now, that said, you know we love you even if we're mad.

If you can, please give Kim a little help. She's a big girl with a big heart and even bigger courage, but this is an awfully big step for anyone to take alone. Give her a hand, please. If you have some time left over, it'd be nice if you could help Kim's family thought this. They're strong, but they could use a little help, you know.

Thanks,
Christopher L. Radloff

P.S. - I'm still mad at you.

Bikers Helping Bikers

2010-09-10T16:17:00.002-05:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Chris Radloff

Cell: 712-898-5220

E-Mail: chris@hippieboydesign.com

Northwest Iowa American Legion Riders Help Victims' Families

Local American Legion Riders are holding a fundraiser Sept. 25, 2010 to help the families of four men. Military veterans and American Legion Riders Steven Benscoter, Dale Aspedon and Dennis Chaney, and Patriot Guard Rider Jay Bock were killed August 9th when a vehicle swerved into their lane near the Little Sioux River interchange on Interstate 29 south of Sioux City, just minutes after a 911 call reported a pickup truck driving erratically.

The American Legion Riders (ALR) are veterans or members of the Legion Auxiliary or Sons of the American Legion. The group raises funds to help people in need, assist with veterans' funerals and raise awareness of veterans' issues. The Patriot Guard Riders (PGR) have no membership requirements, but are supporters of veterans and often provide escorts and hold flag lines for military funerals alongside the ALR.

Aspedon, 49, served in the Navy. Benscoter, 62, served 20 years in the Air Force, and Chaney, also 62, was a Navy veteran of the Vietnam War. All three belonged to the Western Iowa American Legion Riders Chapter, based in Glenwood, IA. Bock, 48, who was Aspedon's cousin, was involved with Habitat for Humanity and the Iowa PGR.

"These four men were very involved, very active," said Northwest Iowa chapter American Legion Rider President Tommy Even of Alton, IA. The Marine Corps veteran continued, "We can't imagine how a tragedy like this must impact their families, their communities. It's a tremendous loss."

The Northwest Iowa chapter of the ALR, based in Le Mars, IA, decided to hold a poker-style motorcycle run to raise funds for the families of the fallen men. "These are tough people," commented Even, "they would never ask for money. But we want to make sure they have help if they need it!"

The fundraiser will begin at the Ickey Nickle, 4700 41st Street, Sioux City, IA (on Highway 75 North). Sign-in for the event will be from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sept. 25th. The route will swing through several towns south and east of Sioux City, pausing at Leather 'n Hawgs in Hornick, IA to enjoy local Sioux City musicians Hippie Go Luck, before heading back to the Ickey Nickel. Food will be generously provided by the Ickey Nickel at the end of the run. There will be no prizes awarded -- ALL the money will go to the cause -- but there will be a silent auction at the Ickey Nickel. The run is open to all vehicles.

# # #

Long time, no see!

2010-07-03T07:20:00.003-05:00

Just have a few minutes, then we're off to a wedding shoot. Should be fun -- we know the couple pretty well. (I'm a bit worried about the groom and his family, though. He's being deployed to Afghanistan again in a couple weeks, so they've all got that weighing on their minds, AND his grandmother passed away yesterday. So this will be an emotional wedding indeed!)

My favorite lens quit working on me, so I've sent that back to Tamron to be fixed. It's under warranty, so that's not an issue -- but it's my best stabilizing zoom lens (28-300 f/5.6) and I have a wedding to shoot. Even with the 5.6 aperture I tended to use that lens in low light simply because the stabilization was so good. I'm hoping to pick up a good low-light lens, somewhere around the f/1.4 to 2.4 range and initially thought I could snag one before today's wedding to use (it's an indoor wedding), but Dagmar and I are in the midst of buying an acreage and money's at a premium around the house at the moment...

So I called a friend. "Hey, I remember you talking about having a good low-light lens for your Canon. May I borrow it for a day?" He agreed readily, as he has a heart of gold.

I was, to be honest, expecting some rather low-budget lenses as he's a strict amateur (I've heard him talk about his camera equipment, but I've never seen it -- he's not making money doing photography, but is rather a hobbyist). I just this morning opened his camera bag to get prepared for the shoot and was surprised to find a WAY cool 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 (the honker's HUGE) and a very nice 24-70 f/2.8! While I really, really wanna strap on that huge 100-400 and go take pictures of someone's left nostril from two counties away, I think I'll probably get much more use out of his 24-70 simply because of the lighting conditions in a church.

After just a couple test shots, now I'm convinced that my next lens has to have a much wider aperture than the lenses I have now -- I take tons of indoor shots and I hate using a flash. Being able to dial down to 2.8 from my current lens' 5.6 really makes a difference!

Anyway, so I've got that on my mind.

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

And here's this -- the funniest, most well-done thing I've seen in quite a while:

Bizzy Days

2010-05-06T09:21:00.003-05:00

Apologies for not blogging more... Things have been moving quickly, yet not getting anywhere at all.

A week and a half ago I raided what little savings we had and got my eyes fixed (Lasik surgery rocks!). Before the surgery, this is what I'd see when I'd look out my office door:

The farther away something was, the blurrier... To the right is the door, to the left is a set of shelves... The blurry things in the middle are our table and a couple chairs, no more than fifteen feet away (if even that) -- so you can imagine how bad my sight was for things that were farther away.

I've worn glasses or contacts since about third or fourth grade, and have never really liked them... Glasses give me headaches and contacts hurt like no one's business if you get something in your eye. So I was happy to finally, FINALLY have the surgery! I could see 20/15 with one eye and 20/20 with the other the morning after the surgery. I still have one eye that's noticeably sharper than the other; I'm hoping that they'll even out over time, but I'm way happy with the results so far.

ANYway... that cost us a lot of money. My beauteous Alpine wife Dagmar was very gracious, generous, and understanding about the whole thing. So we spent all we could and borrowed the rest and I got the operation. Fine 'n dandy -- I have some nice contracts in the pipeline, so the borrowed money should be paid off soon.

But now I'm worried...

Dagmar's been ill for the past five days or so. We went out to a comedy club last Friday (called, oddly enough, "Last Friday Comedy Club"), and Saturday she woke up with a sore throat. Sunday it was bad enough she went to Urgent Care, where they said she had strep throat and gave her some pills. By Monday she was bedridden for the most part and had entirely lost her voice. The doctor confirmed that she has a "rare version" of strep, combined with an acute respiratory infection. More pills. By Wednesday she was coughing up blood. Today she's feeling sharp pains in her chest. The doctor's not returning our calls; I'm getting pretty close to taking her to the hospital.

I'm worried about her health, obviously, but I'm also worried about finances... There's just no way she can work right now, we have no savings thanks to me being selfish and getting the eye surgery, and none of my customers seem to want approve their projects so I can bill them. ("Just one more change. Just add one more little thing." I never bill a project out until the customer's happy. I just wish I could make them happy a bit quicker right now.)

So, instead of working and earning money this morning, here I sit writing my woes, whining to the world. I simply can't concentrate at the moment... I'm sure the doctor will be able to fix Dagmar and I'm sure we'll be okay financially, but these things stress me a bit. I worry and fret.

On a positive note, the dog's tonsillitis seems to have cleared up nicely...

Remix

2010-04-14T19:09:00.001-05:00

I miss writing in my blog! Meantime... watch this if you want.

Run, pup, run!

2010-03-18T15:53:00.001-05:00

I've Been Becked

2010-03-11T06:56:00.000-06:00

Ah, Zoey...

2010-02-28T07:13:00.002-06:00

Quite possibly the most boring video I'll ever make. (It originally had "Brown Eyed Girl" playing, but I was playing around in YouTube and hit the "AudioSwap" button and ended up with something operatic by accident.)

For those reading this on Buzz or Facebook instead of Blogger, here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLab_mC49M4

It's what I do for a living...

2010-02-18T16:33:00.001-06:00

A day in the life of me, condensed to five minutes... (Yes, I have a video camera now. Prepare yourselves for frivolity.)

Dreaming of the Road

2010-02-17T12:59:00.001-06:00

Author: UNKNOWN

1. The only good view of a thunderstorm is in your rear view mirror.

2. Four wheels move the body; two wheels move the soul.

3. I'd rather be riding my motorcycle and thinking about God than sitting in church thinking about my bike.

4. Life may begin at 30, but it doesn't get real interesting until about 65 mph.

5. Midnight bugs taste just as bad as noontime bugs.

6. Sometimes it takes a whole tank full of gas before you can think straight.

7. A bike on the road is worth two in the shed.

8. Young riders pick a destination and go; old riders pick a direction and go.

9. When you're riding lead, don't spit.

10. Catching a yellow jacket in your shirt at 65 mph can double your vocabulary.

11. If you can't get it going with bungee cords and duct tape, it's serious.

12. Only a biker knows why a dog sticks his head out of a car window.

13. I've never seen a motorcycle parked in front of a psychiatrist's office.

Oh for goodness sake...

2010-01-07T08:27:00.002-06:00

Please, when you see a funeral procession, pull over to the side of the road. Please. And please do NOT try to cut through the procession, no matter how much of a hurry you're in...

I just saw a news snippet that a soldier in Tennessee died. During the funeral procession to the cemetery, which included the Patriot Guard Riders, some lady tried to cut through the procession, putting a motorcyclist in the hospital (and most likely totaling an expensive bike).

Motorcycles do NOT stop or turn faster than cars -- especially when they're in a funeral procession.

I've had this nearly happen to me here in Sioux City, too. If you're so busy you need to cut through a funeral procession to get to where you gotta be, it might be time for you to take stock of how you're living your life.

Things I'm pondering lately...

2010-01-05T09:43:00.003-06:00

I design most of my sites based on tables with an external CSS style sheet attached. Some people use div tags combined with internal CSS code almost exclusively to get the same result. Anyone know which is better? I'm good at working with tables, and I suck with divs. I'm slowly learning how to hand code div tags, but I don't know how much time I should spend learning this particular method...

I just checked, and Blogger uses div tags where I'd use old-fashioned br tags... And, I got an error when I went to post this, saying "Your HTML cannot be accepted: Tag is not closed: DIV" Hmmm. Seems divs might not be so bullet-proof.

I got to play with the Sioux City renowned Smokin' Clams last Saturday. I played with the Clams for years and years in the early-mid oughts. It was fun to be able to play in their "reunion gig." We had people fly in from Washington State, Texas, and a few other places just to play the one gig. It was a fun band to be in, and it was fun to see everyone again last Saturday!

What a cold spell. We've been seeing -25, in some places near here -30 temps. It's warmed up to -15 now... Wouldn't be quite so bad, except it keeps snowing. Blich.

I hear one more conversation start, "Yeah, it's a bit chilly out there, huh" followed by the inevitable "Yep, kinda brisk, ain't it," I'm gonna strangle 'em both. When you get below eight or ten degrees, it's just plain cold. When you get down under ten below, it's real cold.

Oddly, I'm hearing complaints from friends of mine in other parts of the country as well, and I don't feel the need to compete. "Man, it got down to 38 degrees last night!" Well, we'd need to warm up 53 degrees just to get UP to 38 degrees... But if you're used to sixty, thirty-eight is downright cold. It's all relative; it's all what you're used to...

The Blizzard of 09

2009-12-27T16:19:00.002-06:00

Well, it looks like we'll survive.

The weatherdude forecast about 20 inches of snow, and that's about what we got... We've been snowed in since Wednesday (today's Sunday). Hopefully the snowplow will come soon -- we still can't get out.

Yesterday Dagmar and I were happily lazing around the house, enjoying the enforced idleness a snowstorm brings, when we heard an odd noise outside. Dagmar trotted to the nearest window. "It's de neighbor kid," she said in that neat Austrian accent of hers. "He's got dat snowyblowy machine. I think he's going to help us with our sidevalk!"

"That's cool," I said, "but if he's doing the sidewalk, who's this in our driveway?" It turns out the neighbor kid was going up and down the block getting the sidewalks, and the across-the-street-kiddycorner neighbor was playing with his new snowblower and decided to get our driveway for us. Way cool!

Dagmar and I grabbed our boots and shovels and went outside to (oddly enough) help the neighbors help us. Within an an hour and a half, maybe two hours, we'd managed to get the sidewalk cleared, the driveway tunneled out, and even backed the car a little ways down the driveway so we could shovel the hood of the car off. We'd also helped push the neighbor lady back into the alley where she parks her car (she was trying to go somewhere, but didn't make it more than five feet into the street before she got stuck).

We missed Christmas at the family farm today, sadly, as the snowplows haven't been through yet. I think by law they have to touch every street in town at least once by midnight tonight (at least that's what someone told me). I know they've been through the "rich" part of town three times already... I have to admit, I was a little upset when we walked Zoey-pup up the street yesterday and saw that they'd cleared a dead-end street with no businesses or houses on it, but not any of the other streets in our neighborhood. Go figger.

This is also about the time after a snowstorm that the news stations all announce that all citizens must have their sidewalks shoveled no later than 24 hours after the snow stopped falling. Unless, of course, you're a business or a government entity, for some reason (none of the stores or restaurants around here ever shovel their walks, nor does the city shovel the sidewalks on public property). It never fails to grump me out.

But in any case, Dagmar and I are both a little sad that our snow-vacation is coming to an end. Tomorrow she goes back to work, as do I. We've really enjoyed being snowed in, oddly enough... I do feel bad for the homeless people in the neighborhood, and the people who lived in the apartment building down the street that caught fire a few days ago. During the height of the storm I heard sirens nearly nonstop as emergency personnel responded to various crises (heart attacks, car accidents, rescuing people in SUV's who think they can go through five-foot snowdrifts), but my little family was safe and snug...

Whoops!

2009-12-27T11:11:00.003-06:00

I've been mucking about with my blog's template this morning... I'm pretty happy with the result, OTHER than the fact that I've lost all my links to my friends' blogs. In order to get my blog to match the rest of www.radloffs.net I had to switch from a .xml to .html template, so I can't simply copy the code over like I'd hoped...

The REALLY sad part is that the only way I found many of my friends' blogs was by clicking on the links... In other words, I'm not sure how to find everyone's blogs again to enter them in manually. So, um, I hate to make y'all do this, but if you want your blog linked in my sidebar, please, please send me a link (either via e-mail or through the comments)... I apologize!

Whooie!

2009-12-18T06:56:00.003-06:00

Just a few notes, randomly...

1. Apologies for not blogging lately. No excuse, just busy.

2. I am NOT happy with Great Southern Bank. My longtime bank, First Federal, recently changed its name to Vantus for no apparent reason. Shorly after that, they were bought out by Great Southern Bank, based not in my hometown, but rather in Kansas City. Not only are they adding more fees and service charges, a very confusing online banking system to replace a very intuitive system, a change to the schedule on when all our bills come out of the account (NOT a good thing!), but they also forced all their customers to replace debit and credit cards. The new cards are ugly, but I can live with that. They have new PIN numbers for us to learn, but I can live with that. What really bites is that they made all their customers "activate" the cards on the same day. So last Monday I had to troop down to the bank to get my new cards "activated" before I could use them. Of course it was well below zero outside, and of course the bank couldn't "activate" the cards indoors but rather made us all go stand outside at the ATM.

Now for the REALLY sucky part -- the new bank made a mistake and locked up all the business accounts. "That's okay," I said, "I'll just use my old card." Turns out they'd already arrogantly deactivated my old card -- leaving me with no way to access my business funds, pay bills, accept payments... My business is dead in the water, financially, until they get this straightened out. It's been nearly a full business week now, and I still can't access my funds.

As much as we enjoy the ladies at the local branch office (they're terrific to work with, personally) I can't afford to have this sort of thing happen. We're switching banks.

3. On the other end of the spectrum, I've had terrific experiences with the online print company VistaPrint lately. They've really gone out of their way to get orders to me on time, and when a customer did get an order late due to the blizzard, VistaPrint refunded the shipping costs without any question. I've also had good dealings with real-live print company Record Printing (I used to work there, so when I have a customer who needs something printed that Record Printing can do, I always recommend Record).

4. I highly encourage anyone whose insurance is denying coverage to send their bill to Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Diot), who is currently grandstanding, posturing, and greatly enjoying his moment in the limelight -- much to the dismay of the 70% of Americans who want Health Care Reform to pass.

5. Had a great time at the Chesterfield last weekend -- photos at www.chesterfieldlive.com.

Veterans Day

2009-11-11T09:15:00.001-06:00

Veterans Day... You know, that phrase didn't mean much to me when I was a kid. I kinda had it mixed up in my mind with Presidents Day and Arbor Day -- just a day that people talk about. Sure, it was a holiday, I guess, but we didn't get any presents or candy, and I didn't know any veterans or anything.
It was just a day.

I don't remember exactly when I started to realize what a "veteran" was. Of course I knew that my grandpa had been in WWII, but he wasn't a veteran, he was Grandpa. I knew that I had aunts and uncles in the Air Force and Army, but they were people who lived a long ways away and I didn't really know them. Sometimes Grandpa put on his funny-looking Legion hat and went to carry a flag in a parade. He considered it a big honor, but I didn't really know why.

I gradually realized that I knew more people who had military experience than I thought. Both grandfathers, most of my uncles on my dad's side, nearly everyone on my mom's side of the family -- they'd all served, quietly and without fuss. A lot of my dad's friends were introduced with a whispered tag "he was in Vietnam."

The day after I turned 17 I found myself staring across a big metal desk at the recruiter from the local Army National Guard unit. He needed my father's signature before I could join as I was underage. Since my dad was the Scoutmaster for the Boy Scout troop in town and I didn't want to drag the recruiter ten miles out to the farm, it seemed natural to bring the recruiter to the Boy Scout meeting that night.

So I officially joined the Army National Guard at a Boy Scout meeting.

Oddly enough, it was well after I had gone through Basic Training and AIT, graduated from high school, and had a year or two of college history classes under my belt before I started to realize what those in the generations before me had done. While I certainly knew of WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, I knew of them in an abstract way. I don't really remember the Vietnam war -- I was six in 1974. (My generation really never knew about Vietnam. We were too young to remember it, but when I was in high school the war had just ended ten years previously, so it wasn't in the history books yet...)

Once I was in college and took a few history courses, though, it started to coalesce in my mind.

The United States lost 405,399 men and women in WWII. That's a big number. My hometown has 8,000 people. In order to understand how many lives were lost in WWII I had to envision everyone in my hometown dying, then multiplying that by 50. It's a number that I found hard to comprehend. Then I learned that there were over 670,000 wounded in WWII. That's over a million people, dead or wounded in a four-year period. That's an impact on society!

There were 13,277,307 Americans serving in the military during WWII. Again, that's over 13 million people in uniform over a four-year period. The men and women who served (including my grandfather and an uncle) came from all walks of life, but united for a common purpose.

When the war was over, they simply came home and went back to work.

The Korean War... There were 36,516 men and women lost in the "forgotten war," and 92,134 wounded. We cannot forget. We simply cannot forget the 4,759 who are missing in action in Korea.

Vietnam. 58,209 names inscribed on a wall in Washington D.C., 153,303 wounded. 2,489 MIA. Those who came home did not get welcomed; society mistook the soldier for the policy maker. A soldier's duty is to do what's asked of them, and those who served in Vietnam did.

266 men killed in Beirut. Forty in Panama. 300 in the Gulf War. 756+ in Afghanistan. 5,371+ in Iraq.

We've lost nearly 5,500 men and women in Iraq, but possibly the number to ponder is 46,132 wounded so far.

Each of these wars, and the deployments in between (31 lost in the Berlin Blockade, 43 in Somalia, 20 in Kosovo) were fought overseas, by men and women who, whether drafted or volunteer, raised their right hand and took an oath...

I, (name), do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

No one who says that oath knows what will come in the months and years to follow, but everyone who takes the oath knows what MIGHT come to pass, and they take the oath nonetheless, most often with a mixture of fear and pride.

To those who have said those words -- THANK YOU. Even in peacetime, a soldier endures years of training, routine, time apart from family... In times of war, well, I can't imagine.
Thank you.

Pic 'o the Day, Day 12-13

2009-11-06T06:33:00.003-06:00

Midair refueling. One of the coolest things I've ever done!

Pic 'o the Day, Day 11

2009-11-04T20:05:00.002-06:00

Pic o the Day, Day 10

2009-11-03T19:16:00.003-06:00

Spencer Hall

Pic o' the Day, Day 7-9

2009-11-02T06:08:00.003-06:00

Here are three pics... One for today, and two for the weekend just past.

This was in the chapel at the Mayo Clinic .

Zoey at the Fair. (She got to go on a hayride pulled by horses!)

Mat D. This shot isn't photoshopped or altered at all.

Pic o' the Day, Day 6

2009-10-30T12:00:00.002-05:00

A pic of the farm I grew up on, taken a month or two ago.

Photo o' the Day, Day 5

2009-10-29T16:05:00.002-05:00

My spirit the past few days...

Photo, Day 4

2009-10-28T09:10:00.005-05:00

April Koopman

Obligatory Political Rant

2009-10-27T08:50:00.000-05:00

Words, words, words...

Can't people get their terminology straight? This is driving me nuts. Seems whenever someone in the government does something goofy, they're immediately labelled "Socialist," "Nazi" or "Hitler."

I shall address the last item first. Hitler killed 6 million Jewish people. There is NOTHING our government is doing that is even remotely akin to that atrocity. When President G. Walker Bush started wiretapping American citizens in a frenzy of paranoia, that did remind one a bit of Hitler's maniacal obsession with control, but President Bush's actions were nowhere near the killing of 6 million citizens. Calling President Bush or President Barack Obama "Hitler," or painting mustaches on posters, is just plain absurd, and in the long run minimizes and marginalizes the pain and atrocity the Jewish people suffered. Please stop.

Socialism: This is not a dirty word. Many countries use aspects of a socialistic government to good effect, especially socialized medicine. Basically, socialism is the theory that big businesses should be owned and operated either by the workers or by the government rather than by a small elite group of people who control a nation's capital (money or resources). Would a completely socialistic society work? Probably not (the Soviet Union was communist, not socialist -- there ARE differences), but some aspects of a socialistic worldview can be advantageous in certain circumstances. Welfare, food stamps, Title 19, VA hospitals, Social Security, the GI Bill -- these are all aspects of our government that have socialistic roots, and these are all (despite their flaws) GOOD programs that have helped millions of U.S. citizens through rough times.

Is the United States becoming a socialistic society? Not even close. Is President Obama advocating socialism? Not even close. Are we considering socialized health care? No, not even close. In order to have socialized medicine, the government would need to control all aspects of health care. In other words, the government would own all the hospitals, would pay all the doctors, would handle all the billing. This is NOT going to happen -- what the current government is proposing is health care reform, not socialized medicine. The government wants to limit some of the control insurance companies have over our health care, and offer a cheap alternative to those who need it. This is capitalism (economic competition) at it's finest, NOT socialism.

I saw an e-mail this morning that complained of "Comrade" Obama raising the deductible of military veterans' insurance from $100 to $500. I don't agree with that move, and while I've not researched the proposal, I have a feeling someone got their facts wrong. But in any case, I thought it was funny that the person who wrote the e-mail complained bitterly of "Comrade Obama and his socialistic buddies" taking away their freedom to enjoy cheap, government-provided (socialistic) insurance. Again, I'm not advocating we raise the rates on veterans' insurance -- I'm just saying that the author of that particular e-mail was obviously trying to use the word "socialism" as a trigger, not aware of it's true meaning, or that the program he was defending from the evil socialists was actually socialist itself.

My grandfather fought against the Nazis... It's sad that in the two generations since World War II we've forgotten what "Nazism" truly is. I hear people from the political right call liberals "Nazis." That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me... Nazism, while containing philosophies from both liberal and conservative ideologies, was undeniably a right-wing, conservative political movement (using modern terminology).

Nazism was very statist and authoritarian. A Nazi believed in ultrapatriotism and unquestioning and unwavering support of their leader. The Nazi leadership believed that they were above the law and could act independently of consequences. Nazis were anti-Semitic and were responsible for killing 6 million Jews, as well as millions of Gypsies, homosexuals, and mentally ill.

There is NOTHING the current or past administrations have done that has any likeness to the evils of the Nazi regime. Not even close. It bothers me that some people toss the "Nazi" term at the Obama administration, which consistently pushes for open democracy and an open government. It made a bit more sense to throw that word at the Bush/Cheney administration -- they were very anti-gay, authoritarian, and enjoyed controlling all aspects of government (you could be jailed for wearing an anti-Bush T-shirt to a Bush rally, while Obama allows people their second amendment right to bring weapons to rallies if they so choose) but the Bush/Cheney administration was still nowhere near the evilness of Nazism.

So please, if you're wanting to call a government official names, don't go with "Nazi" or "Hitler." It just makes you sound like you don't know what you're talking about, and it belittles those who truly suffered under the Nazi regime, and those who fought to remove it. If you use socialism in an argument, please be aware that it's not necessarily a bad thing -- you probably have enjoyed socialistic programs yourself. (Am I a socialist? No. But neither do I fear limited socialistic applications to some of our current problems.)

Photo, Day 3

2009-10-27T07:40:00.003-05:00

Photo o' the Day

I saw this guy on my neighbor's roof...

Photo of the Day

2009-10-26T11:57:00.003-05:00

The Independent Riders for Children and Charities
on a fundraising mission last August.

Yeah, okay...

2009-10-25T04:35:00.002-05:00

Apologies and Promises

So I've been neglecting this blog... Sorry. (For those of you reading this on FaceBook, what you're seeing is a feed from my blog at http://radloffthoughts.blogspot.com/ -- you probably can't see any of the photos, links or videos or anything from FaceBook, so you may wanna traipse over to the blog if you feel you're missing something.)

It's not that I don't have anything to say -- on the contrary, I have plenty of stuff floating around in my bean. But I'm busy. I hate not writing, but it's hard to find time... So I hereby pledge to at least TRY to blog more often. I need to for my own mental health. I'm gonna try to do the "365" project and post a photo a day for a year. With luck, that'll spur me into writing a bit more, too.

I'm still tracking down a photo, so I'll start by trying to get some of the random thoughts that have been collecting in my head out in public.

H1N1 Sucks

I'm sure most of you have heard about Dagmar's trip to Mayo (if not, you can read about it HERE). It seems cosmically unfair that as soon as she started truly recovering from an illness she's been suffering for a decade we both come down with H1N1. My poor Viennese Snickerdoodle has been ill the last ten days (as have I, but she's worse).

What's even more unfair is that as soon as she started feeling a bit better and was considering going back to work, the flu came back. She's STILL sneezing and sniffling and feeling miserable...

Personally, I'm feeling better, but I still have trouble staying awake a whole day. The H1N1 flu really zaps your energy! I've never slept so much in my life...

Honor

I was lucky enough to be able to go on the Siouxland Honor Flight, a program where they raise money, charter a 737, and take WWII veterans to Washington D.C. to see the various monuments -- notably the WWII monument. It's quite an experience!

Right now it's 5:15 in the morning. The Honor Flight was about 11 days ago, but I'm still going through the photos; I'll put 'em on the Honor Flight web site, and we'll make DVDs to give to the 108 vets that were on the flight. I've been working on the photos an hour or two a day... I'm sorting through the photos of the veterans getting off the airplane at the end of the day right now.

The flight left at about 6:30 on a Tuesday morning. We arrived in Washington, toured the memorials, and were back in Sioux City by 2 a.m. Wednesday -- we did it all in one long day. Needless to say, we were tired when we got home! On the plane on the way home I reflected on what I heard one man say earlier that day. "You know, when I came home from the war, I simply got off the train, found a job and went back to work. There was no big hoopla. It wasn't any big deal."

They let media people off the plane first so we could take photos of the vets as they came off the plane... As I walked down the aisle on my way out I heard more than one vet wonder if there would be anyone at the airport. "I'm sure my wife's home asleep. I hope I can find a ride home..." and "I bet even the airport staff is asleep by this time."

Once off the plane I ran down the connecting walkway, cameras flapping in the breeze, hoping to find a good spot to get photos of the guys. Around the corner zipped the exhausted hippie, to be confronted by about 50 cheering people standing on either side of an aisle of American flags. Nearly everyone was waving small flags. The American Legion, Legion Riders, Patriot Guard, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and Legion Auxiliary all had representatives there, veterans of Vietnam, Panama, Somalia, Desert Storm, Iraq, standing at the ready. There was a full brass band set up in the corner.

I skidded to a stop and got my camera set up. The first veteran came around the corner, wiping his eyes blearily.

"They're here!" someone shouted. The people in the flag line came to attention. The band started playing. A cheer went up from the crowd and everyone started clapping, applauding.

Slowly, one hundred and eight World War II veterans, all in their 80's or 90's, walked (and in some cases rolled) down the avenue of flags to meet their loved ones -- finally welcomed home from a war that ended 64 years ago -- with a bit of hoopla.

Aw, shoot.

2009-09-20T11:01:00.002-05:00

Dagmar's been doing tons better since she got the diagnosis at Mayo... But yesterday and this morning she's been ill again. We've done some research and we're pretty sure it's a side-effect of the antibiotics she's on...

I hope the cure isn't as bad as the disease! Off to the doctor again to see what to do about this new wrinkle in the recovery.

Do Tax Cuts Really Work?

2009-09-14T05:39:00.001-05:00

This was passed along to me by a friend...

Sep 11 2009, 10:41 am by Ronald Brownstein

Closing The Book On The Bush Legacy

Thursday's annual Census Bureau report on income, poverty and access to health care-the Bureau's principal report card on the well-being of average Americans-closes the books on the economic record of George W. Bush.

It's not a record many Republicans are likely to point to with pride.

On every major measurement, the Census Bureau report shows that the country lost ground during Bush's two terms. While Bush was in office, the median household income declined, poverty increased, childhood poverty increased even more, and the number of Americans without health insurance spiked. By contrast, the country's condition improved on each of those measures during Bill Clinton's two terms, often substantially.

The Census' final report card on Bush's record presents an intriguing backdrop to today's economic debate. Bush built his economic strategy around tax cuts, passing large reductions both in 2001 and 2003. Congressional Republicans are insisting that a similar agenda focused on tax cuts offers better prospects of reviving the economy than President Obama's combination of some tax cuts with heavy government spending. But the bleak economic results from Bush's two terms, tarnish, to put it mildly, the idea that tax cuts represent an economic silver bullet.

Economists would cite many reasons why presidential terms are an imperfect frame for tracking economic trends. The business cycle doesn't always follow the electoral cycle. A president's economic record is heavily influenced by factors out of his control. Timing matters and so does good fortune.

But few would argue that national economic policy is irrelevant to economic outcomes. And rightly or wrongly, voters still judge presidents and their parties largely by the economy's performance during their watch. In that assessment, few measures do more than the Census data to answer the threshold question of whether a president left the day to day economic conditions of average Americans better than he found it. If that's the test, today's report shows that Bush flunked on every relevant dimension-and not just because of the severe downturn that began last year.

Consider first the median income. When Bill Clinton left office after 2000, the median income-the income line around which half of households come in above, and half fall below-stood at $52,500 (measured in inflation-adjusted 2008 dollars). When Bush left office after 2008, the median income had fallen to $50,303. That's a decline of 4.2 per cent.

That leaves Bush with the dubious distinction of becoming the only president in recent history to preside over an income decline through two presidential terms, notes Lawrence Mishel, president of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. The median household income increased during the two terms of Clinton (by 14 per cent, as we'll see in more detail below), Ronald Reagan (8.1 per cent), and Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford (3.9 per cent). As Mishel notes, although the global recession decidedly deepened the hole-the percentage decline in the median income from 2007 to 2008 is the largest single year fall on record-average families were already worse off in 2007 than they were in 2000, a remarkable result through an entire business expansion. "What is phenomenal about the years under Bush is that through the entire business cycle from 2000 through 2007, even before this recession...working families were worse off at the end of the recovery, in the best of times during that period, than they were in 2000 before he took office," Mishel says.

Bush's record on poverty is equally bleak. When Clinton left office in 2000, the Census counted almost 31.6 million Americans living in poverty. When Bush left office in 2008, the number of poor Americans had jumped to 39.8 million (the largest number in absolute terms since 1960.) Under Bush, the number of people in poverty increased by over 8.2 million, or 26.1 per cent. Over two-thirds of that increase occurred before the economic collapse of 2008.

The trends were comparably daunting for children in poverty. When Clinton left office nearly 11.6 million children lived in poverty, according to the Census. When Bush left office that number had swelled to just under 14.1 million, an increase of more than 21 per cent.

The story is similar again for access to health care. When Clinton left office, the number of uninsured Americans stood at 38.4 million. By the time Bush left office that number had grown to just over 46.3 million, an increase of nearly 8 million or 20.6 per cent.

The trends look the same when examining shares of the population that are poor or uninsured, rather than the absolute numbers in those groups. When Clinton left office in 2000 13.7 per cent of Americans were uninsured; when Bush left that number stood at 15.4 per cent. (Under Bush, the share of Americans who received health insurance through their employer declined every year of his presidency-from 64.2 per cent in 2000 to 58.5 per cent in 2008.)

When Clinton left the number of Americans in poverty stood at 11.3 per cent; when Bush left that had increased to 13.2 per cent. The poverty rate for children jumped from 16.2 per cent when Clinton left office to 19 per cent when Bush stepped down.

Every one of those measurements had moved in a positive direction under Clinton. The median income increased from $46,603 when George H.W. Bush left office in 1992 to $52,500 when Clinton left in 2000-an increase of 14 per cent. The number of Americans in poverty declined from 38 million when the elder Bush left office in 1992 to 31.6 million when Clinton stepped down-a decline of 6.4 million or 16.9 per cent. Not since the go-go years of the John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson administrations during the 1960s, which coincided with the launch of the Great Society, had the number of poor Americans declined as much over two presidential terms.

The number of children in poverty plummeted from 15.3 million when H.W. Bush left office in 1992 to 11.6 million when Clinton stepped down in 2000-a stunning decline of 24 per cent. (That was partly because welfare reform forced single mothers into the workforce at the precise moment they could take advantage of a growing economy. The percentage of female-headed households in poverty stunningly dropped from 39 per cent in 1992 to 28.5 per cent in 2000, still the lowest level for that group the Census has ever recorded. That number has now drifted back up to over 31 per cent.) The number of Americans without health insurance remained essentially stable during Clinton's tenure, declining from 38.6 million when the elder Bush stepped down in 1992 to 38.4 million in 2000.

Looking at the trends by shares of the population, rather than absolute numbers, reinforces the story: The overall poverty rate and the poverty rate among children both declined sharply under Clinton, and the share of Americans without health insurance fell more modestly.

So the summary page on the economic experience of average Americans under the past two presidents would look like this:
Under Clinton, the median income increased 14 per cent. Under Bush it declined 4.2 per cent.

Under Clinton the total number of Americans in poverty declined 16.9 per cent; under Bush it increased 26.1 per cent.

Under Clinton the number of children in poverty declined 24.2 per cent; under Bush it increased by 21.4 per cent.

Under Clinton, the number of Americans without health insurance, remained essentially even (down six-tenths of one per cent); under Bush it increased by 20.6 per cent.
Adding Ronald Reagan's record to the comparison fills in the picture from another angle.

Under Reagan, the median income grew, in contrast to both Bush the younger and Bush the elder. (The median income declined 3.2 per cent during the elder Bush's single term.) When Reagan was done, the median income stood at $47, 614 (again in constant 2008 dollars), 8.1 per cent higher than when Jimmy Carter left office in 1980.

But despite that income growth, both overall and childhood poverty were higher when Reagan rode off into the sunset than when he arrived. The number of poor Americans increased from 29.3 million in 1980 to 31.7 million in 1988, an increase of 8.4 per cent. The number of children in poverty trended up from 11.5 million when Carter left to 12.5 million when Reagan stepped down, a comparable increase of 7.9 per cent. The total share of Americans in poverty didn't change over Reagan's eight years (at 13 per cent), but the share of children in poverty actually increased (from 18.3 to 19.5 per cent) despite the median income gains.
The past rarely settles debates about the future.

The fact that the economy performed significantly better for average families under Clinton than under the elder or younger Bush or Ronald Reagan doesn't conclusively answer how the country should proceed now. Obama isn't replicating the Clinton economic strategy (which increased federal spending in areas like education and research much more modestly, and placed greater emphasis on deficit reduction-to the point of increasing taxes in his first term). Nor has anyone suggested that it would make sense to reprise that approach in today's conditions. But at the least, the wretched two-term record compiled by the younger Bush on income, poverty and access to health care should compel Republicans to answer a straightforward question: if tax cuts are truly the best means to stimulate broadly shared prosperity, why did the Bush years yield such disastrous results for American families on these core measures of economic well being?

We really gotta pass Health Care

2009-09-03T07:08:00.003-05:00

(For those of you on Facebook, please see http://radloffthoughts.blogspot.com/)

The end in sight?

2009-08-17T16:45:00.016-05:00

So many times, so much illness, so much pain...

When my Viennese snickerdoodle Dagmar and I got married way back before digital cameras, life was a whirlwind, mostly undocumented. Of course we spent a lot of time and energy at our respective jobs, but also with our new household, riding the motorcycle, going to parks, traveling the area as much as time and money would allow, me playing in the band, she helping with equipment. We kept busy! In our early 30's, life was pretty full, and we were happy -- even if Fruitloop-kitty had a tendency to pee on her foot every now and then.

One day, "I'm tired," she said. "I don't tink I can go mit you to vatch you play in the band tonight. Maybe you can go by yourself?"

That's okay, no problem. But a week later, "I still don't feel vell," she said.

Life for me became a series of medical vignettes. I remember little snapshots of life. Milestones of a sort. No, not milestones -- mileposts. That's a better word. Not a goal, but rather a spot to pause and remember.

I remember one day playing with the band at an outdoor concert. We were playing the "Beer Stage" at Rivercade, an annual festival in Sioux City. George Thorogood and the Destroyers had just finished playing on the main stage, and people were headed to the beer tent. Our job was to keep 'em there long enough for management to sell enough beer to afford to pay us, basically. The good part is that it was a built-in crowd -- we didn't have to work to get the customers IN the door as they were all ready for a beer, we just had to keep their attention long enough that they'd hopefully buy another... We had a couple hundred people in the beer tent, dancing and having a good time, when out of the corner of my eye I saw our singer drop the microphone and jump off stage. My eye followed the motion, and in an instant I realized Dagmar had passed out -- she was on the ground, slumped in a heap, just to the side of the dance area. She was in danger of getting tromped on by about fifteen half-drunk concert-goers who were oblivious to the unconscious lady in the shadow... By the time I got there, seconds after the singer got to her, she was sitting up, blinking. "I didn't feel so good," she said.

I remember a neurologist looking at the results of an MRI, asking Dagmar, "Do you often have migraines?" Dagmar shook her head and replied, "No, I just get a little headache every vunce in a while, but I don't have major pain." The neurologist gaped at her. "No," he said, "you have migraines. You have migraines so bad they've scarred part of your brain..." Dagmar looked at me, "Vell, these headaches, they don't hurt as bad as my tummy," she said.

Vignettes. Little snapshots.

I remember the story she told coming out of anesthesia, half in English and half in German, about a princess taking a red rose to a castle. I remember a few days after she told me the story about the princess she collapsed while being discharged from the hospital.

I remember spending our first anniversary in the hospital as she recovered from cellulitis in her face, most likely caused from an infection from the surgery. I sat up for 22 hours straight, watching her. I remember waking up in the middle of the night on a chair in the hospital, wondering what all the noise was. "I can't believe you slept through that," the nurse told me. "Your wife nearly died. It's a good thing she pushed the 'call' button or her blood pressure would have kept dropping... It took us five minutes to pull her back. And you slept through it all..."

I remember how happy she was when she found out she was carrying, and how utterly crushed she was when the miscarriage happened. Horrible, wracking sobs... This happened four more times in the coming years. Sobs each time.

Vignettes. Little snapshots of life.

"You go ahead," she told me. "I'm not feeling very well again."

I remember when they removed her first ovary (you can read that story HERE). By that time she'd had so many surgeries that the scar tissue in her abdomen was pulling her internal organs out of place. They were supposed to take a cyst from her right ovary, but when they got in there, her right ovary was fine. "We started looking around," the surgeon told me later, "and it turned out that the cyst was on her left ovary the whole time. But we thought it was on her right ovary because both ovaries were on the same side -- the left was behind the right one."

I remember when they had to go in to remove a blood clot.

I remember when she started bleeding from her navel one day. Oddly, it didn't surprise me.

I remember being terrified that they'd have to remove her remaining ovary. "I can't have kids," Dagmar said, "but vhat scares me is dat the doctor told me if I had one more operation they'd have to remove my bowel. I don't vant a colostomy bag..." When they did do the hysterectomy they had a special surgeon there whose main job was to pull out her intestines and cut off the adhesions and scar tissue. I remember being very relieved when they said they got her all put back together with no colostomy bag problems...

It all blurs together after a while. Which hospital were we in for what operation? Which illness happened when? Does it really matter? Just keep putting one foot in front of the other and carry on... Dagmar smiled and took food to other people in the hospital on her way home from work, refusing to show her own illness. I worked as hard as I could, constantly afraid of not being able to make the bills.

"I've never seen such a bad sinus infection," the doctor said. "There must be some reason she keeps getting these."

A few months later, "this is the third time she's had pneumonia," the doctor said. "There must be some reason for this."

Through it all, Dagmar would do her level best not to show any pain. "Vhy should I moan about it?" she asked. "Udder people die. Me? I'm just sick all the time." We'd go out and see friends and she'd be as bubbly and happy as she was in 2000 when we met, flitting around the room, beaming her smile at whomever was lucky enough to be there. Then when we'd get in the car, "I don't feel so good." The smile would still be there, but it would be strained, her green eyes a little unfocused. The next day she'd stay in bed.

I remember coming home from work and finding her on the floor, writhing in pain. "It's just a kidney stone," she said through clenched teeth. "I get these every once in a while." A pause while she gasped for breath. "A couple more hours and it'll be over."

We took her to the emergency room for kidney stones once. She spent seven hours curled up in the fetal position on a cot while we waited for a doctor. Not only would the nurses not give her any aspirin, but they wouldn't let Dagmar take the aspirin she brought herself. She finally went to the restroom and passed the stone on her own. A week later the hospital sent us a bill.

So we didn't go to the hospital for kidney stones any more.

I remember. I remember hearing her crying quietly into her pillow at night, trying not to wake me. "Vhat can you do?" she asked. "Why should I wake you. It's just pain. I vish it would go away, but there's nothing you can do. Now you go back to bed. It's just those cramps again." She held her side and rolled over, a small trail of blood coming from her belly-button.

I remember the doctor saying, after looking at Dagmar for five minutes, "Really, she's in good shape. We don't know why she's having all these problems."

One doctor said it was her gall bladder after looking at Dagmar for five minutes, so that came out. (That was in 2002, the surgery that caused the cellulitis in her face -- we think that operation is the one that led to the current problem.)

One doctor diagnosed her as having polycystic ovarian syndrome after looking at her for five minutes and said that was causing all the problems. Once she had no ovaries, well...

Celiac's Disease. Crohn's. Massive sinus infection. Let's do more tests... Are you SURE these are your symptoms? What's with the rash?

The last year has been difficult. Dagmar was ill more and more often, and more severe cramping. "I have pains in my arms und legs now," she told me a few months ago. "I feel like someone punched me in the gut." Oddly, the dark circles under her eyes accented the green, making her Gypsy visage the more mysterious. "It feels like I have weights on my arms und legs." All I could do was bring her tea, tuck the blanket around her, and make sure the ever-present barf bucket was close at hand.

"Does she have Celiac's Disease?" I asked the doctor during the five minutes we were allowed to see him. He shook his head. "No, that's not it," he said. A week later we were back in his office again for another five-minute visit. "I think she might have Celiac's Disease," the doctor told us. We went shopping and spent most of our remaining moolah on gluten-free food, a requirement for Celiac sufferers. A week later, "It's not Celiac's Disease," the doctor told me on the phone.

A few days later, "I don't think I can go to verk today," she said. "I'm really feeling pretty bad." We went to the doctor for more tests later that day. I cornered the head nurse. "Look," I said, "something's gotta happen. We can't live like this. She's been sick for EIGHT YEARS, dammit! You've been treating her for two years. If you guys can't find the problem in two years, send us to someone who can!" That's when we got the referral to go to the Mayo Clinic. To be honest, I think the doctor had already come to that conclusion anyway, but it made me feel better to harangue the nurse...

So we took Fruitloop the Diabetic Cat to my more-or-less-brother-in-law and sister's house and taught them how to give a cat a shot, packed up the dog, and headed to Minnesota.

Rochester, Minnesota, home of the Mayo Clinic, looked startlingly like... Well, like a town. We pulled into the Super 8. Dagmar checked in while I started loading our stuff on the rickety little cart they provided, Zoey-dog looking on in dogged amusement. I was just adjusting the last bag on the cart when Dagmar came back out with two little key-cards. "Ve haf a room on the third floor, but we have to be out by noon Thursday."

"That's not gonna work," I said. "On the phone they said we could reserve the room for two days, then extend the reservation as much as we need."

"I know, but they say there's an antique convention in town this veekend and all the hotel rooms in town are all full."

I started to get angry. We went up to our room. I got more angry. "This doesn't look anything like the picture they showed on the Internet," I hollered. "This is NOT going to work!" I'd brought pretty much my entire office with me, under the impression that the hotel room would have a desk upon which to put my computer and two monitors. "Where's the desk?" I demanded. I looked out the window. A fine view of a parking lot under construction backed by a factory of some sort. The only thing that made the jackhammering bearable was that it was being drowned out by the factory noise. "I need a desk, dammit. Their website clearly indicated a desk!"

Dagmar pointed to the little end table next to the bed. "Vell, if you push that little bitty table over by the tiny refrigerator and put the two of them together..." her voice trailed off as she looked at my face. "Maybe I should go downstairs und see if they have a different room."

By the time she got back, I'd calmed down. But she was successful, and we moved across the hall to a different room -- one with a slightly larger table. "It'll work," I said sheepishly. Dagmar had ridden the entire way from Sioux City to Rochester unable to lay her car seat back because I'd insisted on taking my computer and hadn't complained. Here I am, stomping and fuming about minor annoyances when she's in pain... A look at her face confirmed that she was, indeed, hurting. "Why don't you lay down, Schnook?" But she wouldn't -- not until the clothes were unpacked and put away, the dog walked, and the mini-fridge stocked.

Up at 5:30 the next morning, showered, and off to the clinic... We left the room early as we weren't real sure where we were going -- only to find that the hotel had an hourly shuttle bus to and from the Mayo. Convenient! We boarded the 6:35 bus and were dropped off at the Clinic about ten minutes later.

The Mayo is not one building. We were supposed to check in at the Gonda Building, then use the "subway," a series of tunnels, to walk from Gonda through the Mayo, under the street through the Hilton, through the Guggenheim, past Harwick to the Baldwin Building. The check-in process took, literally, thirty seconds. We walked up to a desk that looked like the front desk at a classy hotel, or maybe a fancy airport, Dagmar showed her ID, the lady handed her a packet and said, "Here's your schedule of tests. You meet with the doctor at 8:30, then you'll go to..."

The whole time the lady was talking, I was gawking. I've never seen so much marble. We went down the steps to the subway and found ourselves in a three-story lobby complete with a grand piano... That's the way the whole clinic was -- at one time I found myself complaining about how the artwork hanging in the hallway looked like a cheap Warhol ripoff, only to peek at the sign and learn that it WAS a Warhol...

We made our way through the maze with a minimum of woes and found ourselves on the fifth floor of the Baldwin Building. We sat in the waiting room until the pager they gave us started buzzing, at which time we were ushered into an examination room.

You know how the little exam rooms are... One, maybe two chairs, a table for the patient to be undignified upon, a sink and a small desk with a box of Kleenex where the doctor writes his prescriptions... This room was not like that at all. There was a couch (or loveseat), a couple nice chairs, a computer...

The doctor came in, dressed in suit and tie, and shook our hands. He went through Dagmar's history, bit by bit, gave her an examination, and after TWO HOURS started to methodically order tests and appointments. Two hours with a doctor! I've always considered myself lucky if I could get ten minutes' time. It turns out that the standard is for doctors to get paid according to how many patients they see in a day, which means that they try to rush through as many people as possible. At the Mayo Clinic, however, they pay the doctors a salary -- thus encouraging them to actually spend time with the patients.

A novel approach indeed!

The next days were a bit of a blur. Back and forth from hotel to Clinic, seeing various doctors, getting assorted tests... On Friday Dagmar had a series of biopsies. A gastrointernetologist had narrowed most of Dagmar's symptoms down to problems in four categories. The biopsy would give us the final answer.

We were in the 9th floor of the Gonda Building, I think. Dagmar's little pager buzzed, I gave her a quick kiss and watched her follow the nurse back into the "procedure rooms" for the biopsy, holding her belly where the cramps were. Three or four hours later, my Alpine Snowflake was back, getting out of a wheelchair, smiling at me. "Ve can go home now," she said. "Back to the hotel, ve take a nap, und in the morning we go home. They'll call us Monday with the results."

The trip home went quickly. We've lived here for nearly ten years, and have never been gone for five days before, except for one vacation we were gone six days. It felt strange, coming home. We unpacked, Dagmar put on her comfy jammies and went to bed. "I hate to say it," she said, "but it still really hurts where they took the biopsy." They'd put her under, then went down her throat, snipping bits of her esophagus, stomach, and small intestine for testing. Those tests would tell us if it was Celiac's Disease or some other problem.

Today the results came in.

Dagmar has had West Nile disease for the last few months, but that's not the main issue. The muscle aches are caused by a Vitamin D deficiency, which can be remedied with a simple dietary supplement. But the BIG thing is the abdominal distress she's been suffering for eight years... The biopsy showed that she has a bacterial infection with severe and prolonged bacterial overgrowth. There's a fancy word for it that escapes me at the moment, but basically she's had an infection in her small intestine for the last decade. It's been getting progressively worse and worse, making her sicker and sicker until the past few months when she started having problems digesting food -- thus leading to fatigue and various vitamin deficiencies. A month, maybe six weeks on a couple antibiotics and an illness that's been plaguing her for a decade will be over, and I'll have my happy wife back! (They say this is a very aggressive bacteria, but I'm optimistic that the antibiotics will work.)

I can't imagine having an infection for more than a few months, but the doctor said that with the amount of infection she's got, it's been going on for years, possibly decades, wearing her out, making her sick, making her more prone to catch other illnesses (the pneumonia, for example).

But this is it. It's over. I truly believe this is the end. The illness is done. My wife is back!

Thanks Kevin!

2009-08-16T10:18:00.001-05:00

Meme

2009-08-13T20:25:00.002-05:00

This is a little harder, all of your answers to the questions can only be one word. It is tougher than you think... Play along if you feel inclined!

USING ONLY ONE WORD:

Where is your cell phone?
There

Your significant other?
Beautiful

Your hair?
Longish

Your mother?
Elegant

Your father?
Rugged

Your favorite thing?
Wifey

Your dream last night?
badbadbad

Your favorite drink?
Beer

Your dream/goal?
$ecurity

What room are you in?
334

Your hobby?
V-Twin

Your fear?
Debt

Where do you want to be in six years?
Smiling

Where were you last night?
Working

Something that you aren't?
Rich

Muffins?
Bagels

Wish list item?
Acreage

Last thing you did?
Wife

What are you wearing?
Socks

TV?
Books

Your pets?
Furry

Friends?
Important

Your life?
Acceptable :-)

Your mood?
Worried

Missing someone?
Yes

Drinking?
Tea

Smoking?
Quit!

Your car?
Yaris

Something you're not wearing?
Fishnets

Your favorite store?
Bomgaars

Your favorite color?
Black

When is the last time you cried?
Dunno...

Where do you go to over and over?
Pee

My favorite place to eat?
Home

Favorite place I'd like to be at right now?
Motorcycling

More Health Care Stuff

2009-08-11T13:53:00.003-05:00

I received this earlier today. I haven't checked all the sources, but a quick spot-check didn't show any misleading info...

Top Five Health Care Reform Lies—and How to Fight Back

Lie #1: President Obama wants to euthanize your grandma!!!

The truth: These accusations—of "death panels" and forced euthanasia—are, of course, flatly untrue. As an article from the Associated Press puts it: "No 'death panel' in health care bill."⁴ What's the real deal? Reform legislation includes a provision, supported by the AARP, to offer senior citizens access to a professional medical counselor who will provide them with information on preparing a living will and other issues facing older Americans.⁵

Lie #2: Democrats are going to outlaw private insurance and force you into a government plan!!!

The truth: With reform, choices will increase, not decrease. Obama's reform plans will create a health insurance exchange, a one-stop shopping marketplace for affordable, high-quality insurance options.⁶ Included in the exchange is the public health insurance option—a nationwide plan with a broad network of providers—that will operate alongside private insurance companies, injecting competition into the market to drive quality up and costs down.⁷

If you're happy with your coverage and doctors, you can keep them.⁸ But the new public plan will expand choices to millions of businesses or individuals who choose to opt into it, including many who simply can't afford health care now.

Lie #3: President Obama wants to implement Soviet-style rationing!!!

The truth: Health care reform will expand access to high-quality health insurance, and give individuals, families, and businesses more choices for coverage. Right now, big corporations decide whether to give you coverage, what doctors you get to see, and whether a particular procedure or medicine is covered—that is rationed care. And a big part of reform is to stop that.

Health care reform will do away with some of the most nefarious aspects of this rationing: discrimination for pre-existing conditions, insurers that cancel coverage when you get sick, gender discrimination, and lifetime and yearly limits on coverage.⁹ And outside of that, as noted above, reform will increase insurance options, not force anyoneinto a rationed situation.

Lie #4: Obama is secretly plotting to cut senior citizens' Medicare benefits!!!

The truth: Health care reform plans will not reduce Medicare benefits.¹⁰ Reform includes savings from Medicare that are unrelated to patient care—in fact, the savings comes from cutting billions of dollars in overpayments to insurance companies and eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse.¹¹

Lie #5: Obama's health care plan will bankrupt America!!!

The truth: We need health care reform now in order to prevent bankruptcy—to control spiraling costs that affect individuals, families, small businesses, and the American economy.

Right now, we spend more than $2 trillion dollars a year on health care.¹² The average family premium is projected to rise to over $22,000 in the next decade¹³—and each year, nearly a million people face bankruptcy because of medical expenses.¹⁴ Reform, with an affordable, high-quality public option that can spur competition, is necessary to bring down skyrocketing costs. Also, President Obama's reform plans would be fully paid for over 10 years and not add a penny to the deficit.¹⁵

We're closer to real health care reform than we've ever been—and the next few weeks will decide whether it happens. We need to make sure the truth about health care reform is spread far and wide to combat right wing lies.

Sources:

1. "More 'Town Halls Gone Wild': Angry Far Right Protesters Disrupt Events With 'Incomprehensible' Yelling," Think Progress, August 4, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51733&id=16778-5659380-jErxrex&t=2

2. "Fight the smears," Health Care for America NOW, accessed August 10, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51729&id=16778-5659380-jErxrex&t=3

3. "Palin Paints Picture of 'Obama Death Panel' Giving Thumbs Down to Trig," ABC News, August 7, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51728&id=16778-5659380-jErxrex&t=4

4. "No 'death panel' in health care bill," The Associated Press, August 10, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51747&id=16778-5659380-jErxrex&t=5

5. "Stop Distorting the Truth about End of Life Care," The Huffington Post, July 24, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51730&id=16778-5659380-jErxrex&t=6

6. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 11, 2009.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/faq#i1

7. "Why We Need a Public Health-Care Plan," The Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51737&id=16778-5659380-jErxrex&t=7

8. "Obama: 'If You Like Your Doctor, You Can Keep Your Doctor,'" The Wall Street Journal, 15, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51736&id=16778-5659380-jErxrex&t=8

9. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/faq#r1

10. "Obama: No reduced Medicare benefits in health care reform," CNN, July 28, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51748&id=16778-5659380-jErxrex&t=9

11. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/faq#s1

12. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/faq#c1

13. "Premiums Run Amok," Center for American Progress, July 24, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51667&id=16778-5659380-jErxrex&t=10

14. "Medical bills prompt more than 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies," CNN, June 5, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51735&id=16778-5659380-jErxrex&t=11

15. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/faq#c1

Sources for the Five Lies:

#1: "A euthanasia mandate," The Washington Times, July 29, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51732&id=16778-5659380-jErxrex&t=12

#2: "It's Not An Option," Investor's Business Daily, July 15, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51743&id=16778-5659380-jErxrex&t=13

#3: "Rationing Health Care," The Washington Times, April 21, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51742&id=16778-5659380-jErxrex&t=14

#4: "60 Plus Ad Is Chock Full Of Misinformation," Media Matters for America, August 8, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51734&id=16778-5659380-jErxrex&t=15

#5: "Obama's 'Public' Health Plan Will Bankrupt the Nation," The National Review, May 13, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51744&id=16778-5659380-jErxrex&t=16

Thoughts...

2009-08-07T08:17:00.002-05:00

Warning: These are my opinions. I'm entitled to 'em. It says so right here...

1. I'm happy Mrs. Sotomayor got confirmed. It seemed like the only thing the opposition could find to oppose was one statement she made fifteen years ago. Lord help me if people would be that picky with ME. From what little research I've been able to do, she really does seem to be a level-headed and reasonable judge.

2. Aerosmith's Steven Tyler fell off a stage at Sturgis and broke parts of himself. How awkward. I hope he didn't break a lip.

3. I support health care reform. Some friends of mine are unhappy with a clause in the bill (the one about "end of life counseling" or something like that). Don't trash the entire bill, let's just get that silly clause removed. Health care costs keep rising, but our level of care keeps diminishing. I know MANY people who have been denied coverage due to "preexisting conditions," which is BS. Dagmar and I switched insurance companies a while back and it cost us (if I remember right) $800 to be covered for TWO DAYS while the paperwork for the switch was going through. The company had a clause in the fine print that if you were "uninsured" for any length of time, you weren't eligible for their insurance, so we had to pay a full month's worth of COBRA to cover us for two days... That ain't right. Health care costs have doubled in the past few years. THOSE are the abuses that need to be changed. Let's change 'em.

4. It's 8:35 a.m. and it's already hot.

5. I understand that free speech is free speech, but since when is disrupting a meeting considered a viable strategy? The Republican party has put out word that people should go to town hall meetings and "disrupt" the proceedings rather than let others be heard. That, you see, violates OTHER'S right to free speech, doesn't it? I understand that meetings can be volatile affairs, and that people on both sides have occasionally disrupted things, but I don't think it's right for the National Republican Party to actually tell people to be disrespectful and disrupt debates. It seems one step away from a mob... You wanna go to a town hall meeting, wave your sign, that's fine. Stand across the street and chant, that's fine. Holler a bit and have your voice and opinion heard, that's fine. Stop me from doing the same -- that's not fine. That goes for both sides. Let's get back to listening to each other, dammit.

6. I never heard of John Hughes until today.

7. My upload finished uploading, so back to work I go. (And thus endeth my daily break.)

Corporate Greed SUCKS

2009-07-29T12:35:00.002-05:00

Why are the insurance companies trying so hard to stop health care reform and paint President Obama's insurance plan in a bad light? Simple. They have a lot to lose. Here's what their CEO's make:

H. Edward Hanway - CIGNA $12,236,740
Ron Williams - Aetna $24,300,112
Coventry Health Care $14,869,823.00
Health Net $3,686,230.00
Humana $10,312,557.00
United Health Group $13,164,529.00
Well Point $9,094,271.00

The AVERAGE insurance CEO makes between $10.5 and $14 million per year depending on your source.

If I stood to lose nearly $25 million per year like the head of Aetna, I'd probably fight dirty too! But think about it. That's money that WE spend on health care for our families going directly into THEIR greedy pockets... They're profiting on our misfortune. How much better off would we be if the government provided non-profit insurance coverage for those who wanted it?

Please note, I tripped over these figures on the Internet. I haven't had time to verify them -- I always caution others not to believe everything they read online, so if you have time to check these numbers, please do. If my sources were wrong, please post your findings.

It's starting to upset me...

2009-07-22T06:43:00.003-05:00

I don't have much time, so this isn't gonna be nearly as in-depth as I'd like it to be...

Why are we having a debate on health care? Why do we even need to talk about this? Millions of people are under insured, have been cut from their insurance by the insurance companies themselves and now face economic ruin, suddenly find themselves with a "preexisting condition" they didn't know about...

Let's get this straight -- the government is NOT seeking "socialized medicine." What the Obama administration wants to do is OFFER insurance from a non-profit entity to those who need it. NO ONE NEEDS TO ACCEPT. No one will be forced to go on a government-based insurance plan.

The big pharmaceutical companies have teamed up with the big insurance companies and are lobbying hard to brand President Obama's plan of offering reasonably-priced insurance as "socialized health care," a phrase they've carefully crafted into something that has negative connotations... Couple this with a massive lobbying effort and suddenly something as common sense as "let's lower health care costs" is in danger of losing. In 2008 special interest groups, including pharmaceutical and health insurance companies, spent $32,523 per legislator per day in lobbying efforts. I'll rephrase that. For every congressman and senator in Washington D.C., special interests groups spent $32,525 EACH DAY to change his or her mind. source

One of my own Senators, Chuck Grassley (R) is opposed to health care reform. Why? Simple. Over the past few years he's accepted over $2 million in donations from insurance companies. source Where is this money coming from? Directly from your pocket.

When you pay an insurance premium, you're giving your insurance company money that they give to your congressman in exchange for legislation that keeps us from slowing down their greed. You're paying for some insurance executive to eat gourmet meals on fine china in their offices because they're too "important" to go out to eat or *gasp* bring their own lunch. source I heard on TV (I don't have time to verify it) that one out of every $700 spent nationwide on health care goes directly into the pocket of the CEO of United Health Care.

That is simply outrageous and unacceptable.

These are the same insurance companies that will gleefully take your money while you're well and will gleefully cut your benefits the moment you get sick. These are the companies that "encourage" small business owners to drop their coverage as soon as an employee needs to use the insurance.

I was at a meeting the other day where a local Sioux City businessman got up and told about his experience with insurance companies. He said that normally there's a 2 or 3% increase in rates each year. (When I worked at the print shop I DREAMED of getting that kind of pay increase!) He continued to say that he got a letter this year saying his rates were going up 80% this year. This is not for his personal insurance, mind you, this is for his employees. An 80% increase is insane -- enough, he said, to drive him out of business, OR force him to drop insurance benefits for his employees, thus forcing them to pay insurance out of their own pockets.

I dunno about you, but around here that's usually over $800 a month now.

I saw a sign at the meeting that said the average Iowan pays over $800 a month for insurance, but Chuck Grassley, our Republican senator, pays a mere $350 a month for HIS family's insurance. Yet when someone approached the senator and asked how they could get the same insurance he enjoys, the senator merely replied, "Get a job with the federal government."

Right.

I believe around 1% of the population of Iowa works for the federal government. Well over 52% of Iowans work for small businesses. The same small businesses who are being squeezed out by the insurance companies in the name of greed and profit.

Okay, enter the Obama Administration's plan.

From what I hear, it's not gonna be great insurance, but it's gonna be affordable, and they won't deny benefits to those who need it most. They can run it at an affordable rate simply because they WON'T be spending millions (if not billions) of dollars a year on lobbying, they WON'T be paying Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) $2 million. They WON'T be lunching on gourmet meals served on fine china. They will not force anyone to buy this insurance. It's not a health care plan, they won't be choosing doctors, it's merely affordable insurance.

What will affordable insurance do? Well, the first thing that will likely happen is that there will be a surge of people who are currently uninsured buying it. The next thing that will happen is that the big insurance companies will start to drop their prices in order to compete. Lower health care costs for the same services we get now. Can that possibly be a bad thing?

"Pfft, I wouldn't trust the government to run insurance!" Well, you trust them to run the Army, don't you?

"I don't want some government official standing between me and my health care!" Me either. But who's standing between you and your health care right now? A guy who wants nothing but profit, an insurance agent who's PAID TO DENY YOU the services you've paid for. To me the choice is simple.

Do not listen to the propaganda. If you see a commercial on TV painting the Obama administration's insurance plan as "socialized medicine," rest assured that YOU paid for that ad, and that the people who put the ad out there do not have your best interests at heart but rather their own profits. Think for yourself. Check the facts. Look into this. And when you come to a conclusion, call your legislator and tell them how you feel. Let's force our congressmen and senators to pay attention to us for once rather than paying attention to the $2 million in donations they got from the insurance companies...

Wheee!

2009-07-02T16:24:00.001-05:00

Hippie Go Lucky gets to play at the Chesterfield tomorrow (Friday) night. Yay!

Honor Flight Pics

2009-06-23T18:40:00.002-05:00

Tons of photos. You can peek at 'em if you want... The first batch is from the banquet a day or two before the flight, the second is of the flight itself. You can learn more about the honor flight at www.siouxlandhonorflight.org if you want... You may also see a full-screen slideshow by poking your mouse thing at the slideshows below and following the links to Picasa.

Problems

2009-06-06T07:44:00.004-05:00

PayPal

I got an e-mail from PayPal a while back. I forget what it said, exactly, but it was spooky. "Someone's been trying to get into your account, so we've put limits on it. Please log into PayPal and check it out." I opened a new browser window and dutifully typed in "www.paypal.com" and tried to log in. Sure enough, it asked me for my credit card and bank account info. I stopped and e-mailed PayPal to ask if this was legitimate, then proceeded to forget about it. I never did get an answer.

Today I got another e-mail. Here it is...

Hello Christopher Radloff,

As part of our security measures, we regularly screen activity in the PayPal system. We recently contacted you after noticing an issue on your account.

We requested information from you for the following reason:

We have reason to believe that your account was accessed by a third party. We have limited access to sensitive PayPal account features in case your account has been accessed by an unauthorized third party. We understand that having limited access can be an inconvenience, but protecting your account is our primary concern.

Case ID Number: PP-***-***-***

This is a reminder to log in to PayPal as soon as possible.

Be sure to log in securely by opening a new browser window and typing the PayPal URL. Once you log in, you will be provided with steps to restore your account access. We appreciate your understanding as we work to ensure account safety.

In accordance with PayPal's User Agreement, your account access will remain limited until the issue has been resolved. Unfortunately, if access to your account remains limited for an extended period of time, it may result in further limitations or eventual account closure. We encourage you to log in to your PayPal account as soon as possible to help avoid this.

To review your account and some or all of the information that PayPal used to make its decision to limit your account access, please visit the Resolution Center. If, after reviewing your account information, you seek further clarification regarding your account access, please contact PayPal by visiting the Help Center and clicking "Contact Us".

We thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. Please understand that this is a security measure intended to help protect you and your account. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Thanks,

PayPal Account Review Department

PayPal Email ID PP***

The letter looks legitimate -- it's got my name on it rather than "Dear PayPal User," and there are no links to click but rather instructions to type the URL manually into a fresh browser. But to be on the safe side I forwarded the e-mail to the PayPal spoof people. They replied in minutes.

Hello Chris Radloff,

Thanks for forwarding that suspicious-looking email. You're right - it
was a phishing attempt, and we're working on stopping the fraud. By
reporting the problem, you've made a difference!

Identity thieves try to trick you into revealing your password or other
personal information through phishing emails and fake websites. To learn
more about online safety, click "Security Center" on any PayPal webpage.

Every email counts. When you forward suspicious-looking emails to
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The problem is that I still can't log into my normal PayPal gunk. I go to PayPal.com, type in my name and password, and am taken to a page asking for my financial info... Has this happened to anyone else? Is the first e-mail legitimate? Was the second one an automatic response?

Blech...

It's a cold rainy day today. I'm not sure it's supposed to get above 65 or 70... Drippy drippy drippy. A perfect day to sit inside and get all my work done (I'm rendering some DVD's at the moment so I have a few seconds to type), but the Legion Riders are supposed to be in two different parades today... Little town of Oyens, IA (it literally has three streets going this way and three streets going that way) is celebrating their Sesqui... Semisesqui... Sasquatchcent... their 125th anniversary at noon and Sioux Center is having their annual summer celebration at five p.m.

I'll need to leave the house at 9:45 a.m., probably won't get back until after 7 p.m.

I can't say I'm real excited to lose a day's work to go ride a couple hundred miles in the rain... I'm just too busy. Riding in the cold and rain doesn't bother me much, but it takes more time (gotta ride slower, take time to put on the winter gear and rain suit, etc.) and that's exactly what I don't have today.

Tagged

I started getting e-mails a few days ago from a friend. "So-and-So wants to show you her private photos on Tagged. Please respond or she'll think you don't like her." Hmmm... I know the lady, and it's doubtful that she wants to show me "private photos," so I e-mailed her.

Turns out Tagged is legitimate, kind of a Facebook thing. My friend belongs, so I went to sign up.

I clicked through 15 or 20 advertisement pages (you know the kind, it looks like you're supposed to click the button, but unless you notice the very tiny "skip" button underneath you get sucked into a morass of popup screens) trying to sign up. Once I was all registered, I went back to check my e-mail, only to find about 15 e-mails from Tagged.

I cancelled my account. It's icky and creepy there.

Siouxland Honor Flight

I got to go on an Honor Flight last Tuesday. The Honor Flight is where they take a group of WWII veterans, charter a jet, fly 'em to Washington D.C. and let them tour the WWII monument there. It's free to the vets, and is quite the experience!

We had over 100 veterans go on our trip, along with around 35 support personnel (a medical team, Guardians who look after the veterans, and a few media people). It nearly broke my heart to see the airport security people make 105 85- and 90-year-old men totter around the airport in their stocking feet, britches falling off, shoes and belt in hand... Half of the guys had metal implants and couldn't make it through the metal detector and had to be taken aside.

We met at the airport at 4:30 a.m., flew direct to Dulles in Washington D.C., got on some buses that took the group to the WWII Memorial, then off to a bus tour of the city, stopped at the Korean Memorial, Vietnam Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Air Force Memorial, the FDR Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery, then back to the airport and homeward. We got back to Sioux City about 1 or 1:30 a.m. It was a BUSY day!

I'll do a full write-up when I get time, but MAN was it a touching event! When the plane landed in Washington D.C. people in the airport were waving flags and cheering -- they even had the fire trucks shoot water over the airplane in honor of the vets. At the FDR Memorial some school children figured out that the guys in the blue shirts were all WWII veterans -- the vets spent the next 15 minutes shaking hands with awed children. When we got back to Sioux City there was a flag line and a real gosh-honest brass band playing patriotic music, people waving flags and cheering -- at 1:30 in the morning!

Ruminations

2009-05-31T09:30:00.002-05:00

You know, if there's one thing I can't stand, it's an "Apology Blog." You know the kind, where every entry is the same, "I'm sorry I haven't written, but I've just been so busy..." I hate that.

Anyway...

I'm sorry I haven't written, but I've just been so busy.

I'm a delinquent

2009-05-21T07:27:00.002-05:00

I miss blogging. I miss writing. I miss reading other people's blogs. I miss the whole thing.

I apologize for my absence. Work has been hectic, to say the least, and that makes me happy. I'd much rather be busy than not!

Every morning I get a cup of food for the pooch, Zoey. I bend down and scoop the kiblets out of the bag... And every morning the smell makes me hungry. Why does that make me feel odd?

Video of the Knoxville Mission

2009-05-08T10:29:00.003-05:00

You may remember that I wrote about a group of us Northwest Iowa American Legion Riders going to Knoxville, Iowa to escort the remains of seven "forgotten" soldiers to the Iowa Veteran's Cemetery (you can see the original post HERE)...

Here's a video that was sent to me of the group leaving the parking lot. I think I saw myself go past at the 6:44 mark.

You'll notice that there are rather a lot of bikes there, many people there to pay respects to the seven who had no family. I hope we were able to honor them...

Cat Yodeling

2009-05-04T14:57:00.004-05:00

Takes a minute to warm up, but it's worth it.

Rock 'n Roll Lifestyle

2009-05-04T14:16:00.002-05:00

Tripped over this old song by Cake the other day. It still rings true to me, somehow...

Well, your CD collection looks shiny and costly.
How much did you pay for your bad Moto Guzzi?
And how much did you spend on your black leather jacket?
Is it you or your parents in this income tax bracket?

Now tickets to concerts and drinking at clubs,
Sometimes for music that you haven't even heard of.
And how much did you pay for your rock 'n roll t-shirt
That proves you were there, that you heard of them first?

How do you afford your rock'n'roll lifestyle?
How do you afford your rock'n'roll lifestyle?
How do you afford your rock'n'roll lifestyle?
Ah, tell me.

How much did you pay for the chunk of his guitar,
The one he ruthlessly smashed at the end of the show?
And how much will he pay for a brand new guitar,
One which he'll ruthlessly smash at the end of another show?
And how long will the workers keep building him new ones?
As long as their soda cans are red, white, and blue ones.

Aging black leather and hospital bills,
Tattoo removal and dozens of pills.
Your liver pays dearly now for youthful magic moments,
But rock on completely with some brand new components.

How do you afford your rock'n'roll lifestyle?
How do you afford your rock'n'roll lifestyle?
How do you afford your rock'n'roll lifestyle?

Excess ain't rebellion.
You're drinking what they're selling.
Your self-destruction doesn't hurt them.
Your chaos won't convert them.
They're so happy to rebuild it.
You'll never really kill it.
Yeah, excess ain't rebellion.
You're drinking what they're selling.

Finally home...

2009-04-25T14:52:00.007-05:00

Wow.

A group of us from the Northwest Iowa American Legion Riders trekked down south of Des Moines last Friday. We met at 6:30 a.m. in the designated parking lot on the south side of Sioux City. Some of us from Sioux City didn't have to leave home until 6:15 to make the rendezvous, but we had a few riders from up north that had to ride nearly an hour in the predawn dark to make the 6:30 meet.

As soon as we thought everyone who was gonna be there was actually there, we took off, rumbling off into the sunrise, leather chaps, leather coats, hats, helmets, gloves keeping the dawn chill at bay. It was a beautiful morning! Usually in Iowa in April the average high temperature is about 64 degrees or so, with mornings in the 40's. But yesterday we started off in the warmth of a 60+ degree morning and the promise of a sunny day.

The eleven of us on the ride settled into a familiar pattern, riding in staggered formation down I-29 with our buddies. Cap'n Doodle was in the lead (he IS our group's Road Captain, after all). A naval veteran of the Vietnam, Gulf War and Iraq/Afghanistan wars, Doodle is more than capable of leading our merry band down the road. His brother Larry, a Vietnam vet himself, was next -- the brothers stick close. The rest of us followed in more or less random order, Tim (Army), Tommy (Marine, Panama) and his two boys T3 (Army, Iraq/Afghanistan) and Travis (in high school yet), George (Army, Vietnam), Brian, Ken (the best dressed biker I've ever met, Navy), Seamus (Marine), and myself (all I did was paperwork in the National Guard; I'm honored the others let me tag along). We've ridden together many times.

After a few miles a person finally gets everything adjusted (I was wearing a helmet; the chin strap was loose, flapping in the wind, whapping me in the face in a very annoying fashion) and starts to relax a bit. Thoughts wander. I'm pretty sure on the first 90-mile stretch we all thought about what the day had in store for us...

The MIAP (Missing in America Project) found the remains of seven Iowa soldiers at a funeral home in Knoxville, IA. This isn't unusual, and the MIAP works pretty hard to alleviate the problem. What happens is that an old vet passes away at a VA hospital with no known next of kin, so they simply cremate his remains, put 'em in a can, and hope someone eventually shows up to claim them. A homeless veteran dies with nothing but his old dog tags. A soldier is killed in action, the contact name on his SGLI (Soldier's Group Life Insurance) died while he was overseas, no known contacts... The remains of these soldiers often sit in funeral homes across the nation for decades. The seven soldiers we were going to honor today were going to be interred at the new VA cemetery in Van Meter, Iowa, just outside Des Moines about 20 miles. Pretty heavy stuff to think about at seven in the morning.

Our first stop was at a gas station on the west side of I-29 at the Missouri Valley exit. We often stop there, they have a good truck stop. Eleven bikes poured in to refuel, eleven leather-clad gentlemen with biker vests covered with military insignia bustled in to get a quick cup of coffee, startling the elderly couple who happened to be waiting at the checkout counter. Someone noticed the old gent had an "Army Veteran" baseball hat on and shook his hand. In ten minutes we were back on the Interstate, looking for the exit to head east on 680.

I thought of my old college roommate, Dad Andersen, and his family as we rolled along. I used to come to Missouri Valley to visit them every now and then but they've moved long since to the deserts of New Mexico. I'd joined the Army National Guard the day after I turned 17, and went to Basic Training while I was still in high school. Between high school and college I went through AIT (Advanced Individual Training), getting back to Iowa right in time for Freshman Orientation. It's a bit, well, disorienting to go from high school to college under the best circumstances, but to go from high school to three months of intense soldiering, THEN to the freedom of college -- it about blew my mind. I remember walking into my dorm room, finding it empty, and leaving my duffel bag on a bed to signify to my as-yet-unmet roommate that I was here. A few hours I came back, my shaved head glistening in the sun, wearing my Army t-shirt, to find a long-haired, slightly scared-looking hippie in my room. He scared me, and I scared him, and we've been friends ever since.

Heading east into the sun on a spring morning is good for the soul. Traffic picked up when 680 merged with I-80 east, but Cap'n Doodle managed to keep the group together as we passed slower-moving semis. I kept watching Tommy and Trav in my rear-view mirror. Tommy was a Marine in the Panama invasion. His older boy, T3, joined the same Guard unit I'd been in 20 years ago, and served in Iraq. Travis is still in high school, but knows what soldiers are like. His dad took him out of school so he could ride along with us to see the ceremony. Tommy, T3 and Travis are pretty tight.

How terrible would it be to die alone? To be so very alone that no one knows what to do with your ashes? Especially after serving your country... The seven soldiers in Knoxville (population somewhere around 7,000, but home to one of the state's VA hospitals) were from WWII, Korea and Vietnam. Soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines.

We stopped for gas at Adair. We had to keep in mind that Travis' Harley Sportster has a fairly small tank, so our range was limited to about 90 miles, though he says he routinely gets 110 miles on a tank. We would have stopped anyway; as much as we like riding, it's hard to ride too awfully far without stopping to stretch a bit. "I'm a bit worried about us getting there in time," Cap'n Doodle said to me when the engines were off. "We've still got right at 90 miles to go..." The Patriot Guard Riders (PGR), who organized the motorcycle escort for the ceremony, wanted us there by 11:30. Ten leather-clad gentlemen all piled into the gas station, en masse, to use the facilities. The eleventh leather-clad gentleman discreetly ducked around the corner of the building...

Within minutes we were on the road again. East on I-80 to the outskirts of Des Moines, then merge right onto I-35 south towards Indianola. We dodged and weaved, playing truck-tag, trying to stay as a group as much as we could. I don't know about the others, but I was born on a farm outside a town with a population of 250. City driving, even the outskirts of Des Moines, Iowa, makes me awfully nervous. I'm MUCH more comfortable on a two-lane country blacktop. But we all managed...

I wasn't sure what to expect. I'd learned of the ceremony months ago. I got an e-mail from Bear, the state PGR guy, but it didn't give much more than a date, time, and location. This being a Friday, I assumed not many people would be able to take time off work to attend... But it being near a larger population center, maybe there would be fifty or sixty bikes there. Hard to tell.

We pulled into Indianola and found a gas station for one last refill before going the last thirty miles to Knoxville. We shed our coats and gloves as the day was warming nicely. I smeared some sungoop on my beak, just to be on the safe side. My Austrian Snickerdoode Dagmar had already sungooped my face before I left, with the warning, "You vatch out for de sun! You burn yourself every time you go ride..." One set of tanks full and another set of tanks emptied, we set off on Highway 92 towards Knoxville. Within three miles I found myself rolling up my long sleeves, thus exposing my tender and fishbelly-pale arms to the sun for the first time in five months. Ah, glorious spring!

We came to a four-way stop where Highway 92 and Highway 5 merge. A group of about a dozen bikes pulled in front of us. "Well, at least we're not the only ones to show up," I thought to myself. We rode past a cemetery just outside Knoxville; I could see (or at least I thought I could) the graves for my aunt, uncle and cousin. It struck me for the first time that while I had family in Knoxville for years, the only times I've ever been in that town were for funerals. And here I was again...

Cap'n Doodle led us into the heart of the little town, but we saw no signs of the funeral home or any other bikes until we saw a few bikes stopped at a gas station. We pulled in. I heard Doodle holler over the rumble of the bikes, and a guy point. We went in the direction of the pointing finger, turned a corner, and oh my...

There were about 400 bikes and roughly 600 people gathered on the yard of the funeral home.

A highway patrolman was directing traffic. He waved us into a side lot across the street from the funeral home. We parked our bikes, I grabbed my camera, and off we went...

As we merged with the group at large, I started to worry a bit about keeping our group together. Cap'n Doodle is in charge while we're riding, but I'm actually the president of our chapter, so the overall safety of the group is my concern. I decided, though, that we're all wearing our big-boy pants, we can all buy gas all by ourselves, and we all know the way home, so if worse comes to worst and we get separated, it's not really all that big a deal. About that time I saw three more of our group -- they must have rode down the night before.

"They want you to sign the guest book," a lady told me, handing me a piece of paper. A program. The front had the seals for the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force. The inside had the words for "Taps," and the names of the soldiers.

Airman Bennie L. Hall, U.S. Air Force, Vietnam Veteran
PVT Batestta Lipuma, U.S. Army, WWII Veteran
PVT Michael Alan Pfeifer, U.S. Army, Vietnam Veteran
Seaman Albert Lee Ramey, U.S. Navy, Korean Veteran
Petty Officer Leroy Thomas Stephens, U.S. Navy, Korean Veteran
CPL Ward Dewey Stockstill, U.S. Marine Corps, Korean Veteran
PFC Kenneth D. Gonsalves, U.S. Marine Corps, Vietnam Veteran

The lady pointed to the front door of the funeral home. There was a line going all the way to the sidewalk. We made our way to the end of the line... I took pictures while I waited, but it was a short wait - the line moved surprisingly fast. In just a few minutes we were inside. "This is a grand old house," said Spiffy Ken. He's the only biker I know that can wear a black leather vest and a tie at the same time and look completely natural. "Look at the old woodwork."

We signed the book, turned around, and were confronted with seven small boxes and seven regulation U.S. flags, folded to perfection. Each box had a name engraved on a small brass plate on the front.

I didn't take a picture. It didn't seem right.

Back outside, blinking in the bright sunlight, we wandered towards the hearse. It was a small carriage, built large enough to hold a casket, small enough to be pulled by a motorcycle. When I go, this would be a good way to take the final ride...

Just a few minutes later a guy got up and hollered a prayer at us. Someone called the group to attention (it was a sight to see a crowd of about 700 bikers snap to attention), called a salute (veterans saluted, others stood at attention; I was proud to see that young Travis knew exactly what to do, thanks to Papa Tommy), and the remains were brought to the hearse. A call went out to mount up, so off we went to the side lot where our bikes were parked.

One of the local TV stations guessed 700 bikes. I guessed around 550 or so. Someone else figgered about 600. Another guy thought there were more... In any case, that many engines sparking to life at the same time creates quite a roar. It's hard to explain, but we kinda eased our bikes forward into two lines. I was the last of our group in the right line of bikes. We sat in the side lot waiting for all the bikes from the "main" lot to pass. Then we sat waiting for all the bikes from the side street to pass. Then we waited while yet more bikes passed. Then Cap'n Doodle saw a break and pulled into the formation... But the bike in front of me got cut off, so me and one other guy from our group were left sitting, waiting for another break in the stream of bikes so we could merge in with them. We finally got our chance and pulled into the "main body" of bikes. I'd estimate we were about two-thirds back in the pack.

We poured down the street onto the main drag, police blocking all the intersections for us. Within just a few minutes we'd left the downtown area of the small town and were passing the grounds of the VA hospital. Groups of people lined the way, some saluting, some standing somberly, some simply watching the spectacle. Schoolchildren lined one side of the road as we left the town, Boy Scouts and Legionnaires on the other side, American flags waving in the breeze.

The group made it's way the 50 or 60 miles to the VA cemetery in Van Meter. As far ahead and behind as I could see was a double line of motorcycles. At every intersection people were gathered, standing solemnly. Most small towns had their fire departments line the trucks up, flags waving off the ladders. The highway patrol and local police cooperated to block intersections for our group.

It was a bit problematic to get two miles' of motorcycles to merge from Interstate to Interstate, and I did see a few close calls -- including one time when a group of bikes in front of me slammed on their brakes unexpectedly whilst I was watching my mirror trying to merge. I hit my brakes and found myself in a minor skid. Thankfully I didn't go down, and didn't hit anyone in front of me...

When we flowed through Van Meter people were lined up on both sides of the streets, flags waving in the breeze. Through town and up the hill to the cemetery... Turns out they weren't expecting so many people. (One guy told me they were expecting maybe half a dozen bikes.) They didn't have parking prepared, so half the bikes filled the parking lot, and the rest of us just lined our bikes up three across in the road and parked.

I hopped off the bike soon as the kick stand was down, got my camera out, grabbed my phone, and off we went down the hill to the site where the ceremony was to be held. We got about fifteen feet any my phone rang -- it was my Vunderful Viennese Vife, Dagmar. "Hunny, I just got a call from our debit card people," she said. "Dey tink someone stole our debit card because there vere two small transactions down by Des Moines..." Well, duh. That's me. She continued, "You need to call a number und talk to a man." As we talked about this, I was walking down the flagline, heading towards the ceremony. I passed several friends from another chapter standing in the avenue of flags -- I wanted to talk to them but didn't have time. Credit card people scare me... But the scene of hundreds of bikers lining both sides of the path with flags was breathtaking.

We found the rest of our group and commenced to standin' around for a while, waiting for something to happen. There were so many people that we couldn't see what, if anything, was happening up front, but we assumed we'd know when something exciting happened. Sure enough, after a few moments a glorious cacophony broke out somewhere northwest of us. I jostled my way up to the front to get a peek...

Many military funerals will have a piper. This is the first time I've seen a whole squad of 'em!

It looked like they had four pipers, four drummers, and a guy calling the shots, all in kilts, leading the procession down the avenue of flags. Behind them were fourteen soldiers, two for each of the seven men we were honoring. One soldier held an American flag, the other a small box containing the ashes. Behind them were bikers with flags. The procession made it's way slowly through the crowd along the avenue of flags towards the building where they were holding the ceremony.

Sadly, that's all I could see. They didn't think there were going to be so many people there, so they didn't have a PA system or anything... So the entire ceremony consisted of an Admiral speaking to a small group of about fifteen people inside the building, with a squad of pipers standing silently outside. Beside them were the soldiers. Behind them were a line of Marines. Surrounding that small group were around nine hundred or or a thousand bikers, most holding American flags.

No one knew what was going on inside the building, but we all stood quietly in the spring sun, facing the building, for about forty-five minutes. I quietly roamed around the outskirts of the group, taking photos. I saw a lot of American Legion Rider patches on the back of the biker vests, along with CMA (Christian Motorcycle Association), AmVets, Vietnam Veterans Motorcycle Club, and about ten other groups. I ducked behind a tour bus and called the credit card people and cleared that problem up, then rejoined my group.

Eventually things seemed to wind down. There must have been a signal up front somewhere, everyone came to attention and saluted, then we all just sort of filtered away...

Our group was supposed to all meet at the entrance of the cemetery so we could start the trip home together, but by the time I'd found my motorcycle again the main part of the group had already called me, "We're able to get out -- we'll meet you at Adair." Okay, that sucks... Me and my buddy were blocked in by other bikes and couldn't get out. We stood around for about half an hour by our bikes waiting for the hundreds of people in front of us to get their bikes out of the way. Eventually we did find our way back out of the cemetery and out to the Interstate. Westward we went, hoping to hook up with the rest of the group at Adair (one of the towns just up the road a piece).

About five miles up the Interstate I saw a lone biker sitting on the side of an off-ramp. I pulled off to see if he was okay -- turns out that of the 700 bikes that were there, this particular guy was one of our group. "Where is everyone?" he hollered at me. "Adair," I hollered back. "Okay, let's go." So the three of us swooped back up onto the Interstate.

As we had been standing at the ceremony I noticed that the wind was picking up. Wind is one of the nasty enemies of motorcyclists. It's downright difficult to ride a bike if there's a crosswind, and this felt like it was getting up into the 35 mph range. We slowed down a bit, and at the next town I pulled off again. "I'm sorry, guys," I hollered as we were stopped at the stop sign, "I gotta get gas." We rolled around the corner to the nearest gas station, and to our surprise, there was yet another of our guys. "Where is everyone?" he asked. I explained that we were suppose to meet in Adair.

I gassed up and glanced at my phone. I'd missed a few calls and had a message. I punched the code for voice mail and heard, "We're all sitting here in Adel waiting for you. Where are you guys?" Adel? They said Adair! Adel is twenty miles back... I called them and told them we were headed for Adair.

We mounted up and made our slow way the remaining twenty miles to Adair and pulled off again. The wind was really battering us, making riding difficult -- especially on Seamus, who had a large flag rolled up on a staff mounted on the back of his bike. "I'm having trouble keeping up," he said as we stopped. "The wind's really pushing me around. You guys just go on ahead."

"No," I said, "We'll stick together. I don't wanna leave anyone behind."

"You stay in front, though," he said. "If this stupid flagpole wiggles it's way loose I don't want it hitting anyone. I'll stay in the back."

"Sounds good," I replied. "If I'm going to fast, just hang back and I'll slow down."

We joined the rest of the group, counted heads, and headed back out to the Interstate. Within two minutes the first half of the group had passed a semi leaving me and Seamus behind. Ah well -- Cap'n Doodle will get them home okay. Seamus was having troubles getting above about 60 mph, so we trundled our way slowly up the Interstate. Eventually the wind shifted around so it was coming directly at us, making riding much easier and we were able to get back up to speed.

About thirty miles east of I-29 we passed a cold front. One of the strange things about riding is that you're very susceptible to temperature -- we both knew exactly where the cold front was! Within just a half mile the temperature dropped from the mid 80's to the low 70's. By the time we got to I-29 and the last stretch of our trip home at 7 p.m. it was colder than it had been at 6:30 that morning.

At last Sioux City's fabled skyline shimmered in the distance, signaling an end to our voyage. Seamus waved a cheery salute to me as I pulled off on my exit ramp and we parted ways. I got home, kissed the dog, patted the wife on the head, and took my coat off just in time to hear my phone ring. It was Cap'n Doodle. "You get home okay?" he asked. I was happy to hear that he got everyone else home without incident, and I was happy he was checking on me. I'd worried about the group being separated the whole way home, but things turned out okay.

After I sat down and started shaking the 500+ mile windblown trip off, I started to realize just what we'd done that day. Being so caught up in events, I hadn't had a chance to think things through.

Seven veterans in Iowa died alone. But well over a thousand people made sure they didn't go to rest unnoticed. That's good.

You can see larger versions of the photos here:
http://tinyurl.com/dn5cf7

I don't know how long these links will be active, but here are a few TV clips of the event:
http://www.kcci.com/video/19289052/index.html
http://tinyurl.com/deu8g2

Tomorrow

2009-04-23T13:05:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow should be an interesting day.

The remains of eight Iowa veterans are being relocated from Knoxville, IA to the VA cemetery in Van Meter, IA. A group of us are gonna head down there to escort the procession.

It's a good 240 miles to Knoxville. They want us there by 11 a.m. Needless to say, we'll be leaving early. It looks like we're going to be VERY lucky with the weather -- this time of year in Iowa the normal high temperature is about 65 degrees, and it's generally rainy. But tomorrow's supposed to be about 80 or 82 degrees and sunny! Perfect for a bike trip.

I just wish it wasn't for such a somber occasion...

Did you know?

2009-04-18T09:04:00.000-05:00

The Art of Art

2009-04-15T20:13:00.002-05:00

The following is something I wrote for a new venture I'm going into with a buddy of mine. Drew put together a fantastic site for local artists and musicians, SiouxLAB.com, and he's invited me to be a part of it.

What is art? That's not a real original question, but it's one that pops up fairly often... I don't know if I have any insight into this or not, but I'll gladly spew my thoughts, such as they are...

When you use the word "art" to most people, the first thing they think of is a painting hanging in a gallery. Most likely the Mona Lisa. And that is, indeed art, no doubt about it. When you push the issue a bit, your average person will widen their scope to admit music into the realm of "art." Few people think of sculpture or architecture as art right off the bat, and almost no one thinks of commercial art (hey, someone actually designed your business card, you know) or the effort that goes into an elegant cell phone design as "art."

Is cooking an art? Sure! Anyone who's had a good meal will agree with that.

Photography? Is that art? Well, sometimes. If you're just flipping up your phone and snapping a picture of your buddy peeing in an alley, well, that's just a snapshot. If you take time to frame the shot... Well, then it might be art. Or it might be a bit twisted. Anyway, there's a bit of a difference between a snapshot and "Photography." All in all, though, photography is now accepted as art, thanks to the pioneers in the field who took the science to a higher level.

Regarding photography as art, I heard it put this way once. A photographer was invited to dinner party at a friend's house. The food was good, the conversation sparkled, and everyone was having fun. Eventually the photographer was asked about his work, so he pulled out a few photos and passed them around the table.
"Oh, these photos are fantastic!" gushed the hostess. "You must have a very good camera!"
The photographer smiled and nodded... But at the end of the evening, he said to the hostess, "The dinner was great! You must have very good pans!"

Anyway, we all know that art is not independent of the tools and science needed to produce said art. The photographer needs to know how to use his camera - aperture, f-stop, ISO, composition, lighting. The painter needs to know how his paints and pigments react with the canvas, how his hand treats the brush, how shadows work. The sculpter spends most of his time dinking around with his raw materials, learning technique, studying rather than actually sculpting. The musician spends most of his time running scales, training his fingers, learning theory, and precious little time creating. Each discipline takes study, practice, science, technique, and application. That makes it VERY easy for artists to get lost in the mundane, to forget that perfection lies not only in the mixture of pigments, but also the perspective and subject and personality of the piece. A guitarist can get swept up in perfecting his sweeping arpeggios, much to the dismay of his audience who may see the apreggios merely as one component of the whole rather than a technical accomplishment. (In other words, lots of notes in a short space will wow an audience -- for a time. Then they want to hear the melody...)

To go another direction, in ye olden days (and perhaps yet today, this is beyond my direct knowledge) a master sculpter did NOT do the actual scultping. The artist came up with the concept, made a small model, and let his craftsmen and artisans do the actual work. So when you look at a bronze sculpture, who is the artist? The guy who came up with the idea? Or the guy who made it reality?

I've spent most of my adult life doing production art of one kind or another. When I started in the print shop, I was surprised when I heard the darkroom guy refer to a business form I'd just designed as "artwork." Everything that goes on the press is called artwork. And it makes sense -- the designer has put time and a bit of soul into everything that gets printed; even something as simple as a business card can take hours to design, depending on what the customer wants. As a production artist I couldn't let a job go through without putting a bit of extra "oomph" into it -- even if the only thing I could do was choose a font that complimented the cusotmer's logo, I took pride in my choice. Does that make me truly an artist? I dunno...

I never felt like an artist until I quit thinking of the computer as a computer. When the software I was using became so second-nature to me that I didn't have to pause for thought as I was designing something, I didn't have to stop to look at the keyboard, didn't have to search through the menus -- that's when I started feeling like an artist. The design I was doing came from ME, not from what my software wanted to do. The same theory holds true when I play my bass guitar -- I never felt like I was truly playing until the day I realized I had NO idea what my fingers were doing; there was little impediment between my brain and the notes.

So that's one way to look at it, I suppose. It's art if it's a true reflection of what the designer, musician, artist, cook had in mind and NOT a reflection of the limitations in application.

I'm afraid I have no conclusions to this. I have a ton of other thoughts, but they'll keep until next time.

Waving my Feeble Fist at the World

2009-04-08T07:01:00.002-05:00

iTunes Gets Greedy

It's true. Apple's iTunes online music service has raised it's prices from the 99 cents it's traditionally charged for a song to some screwy system where "popular" songs are $1.29, some songs are 99 cents, and the really old stuff is 69 cents.

I have to admit, this makes me unhappy. I hate to see prices rise, and I'm already grumpy at iTunes. As you may be aware, I've had computer problems lately. My hard drive died, so my backup data was loaded onto another hard drive, which died, so THAT backup data was loaded onto a third hard drive... Sadly, iTunes will only let you "own" limited copies of the songs you "bought" -- the result being that the last time I tried to listen to iTunes I was warned that I can only make one more backup of my music library before it self-destructs and I have to buy all my iTunes downloads over again.

Grrrrr...

There's a painful workaround to this (I think) -- if I'm guessing right, I could burn all my iTunes downloads to CD as .aiff files, then reimport them back into iTunes again as .mp3's. This will degrade the sound a bit, and will take a considerable amount of time -- especially as the computer shop that fixed my hard drive broke my CD/DVD burner and can't fix it, so I can't make any disks at all at the moment...

Anyway, I'm a little grouchy about iTunes raising their rates, even when all the songs I personally like are probably in the "69 cent discount bin."

FOR SALE:

One "Bill Richardson for President" bumper sticker, like new. Much like his innovate veterans' health care program, it's never been used.

I'm So Excited!

I've noticed recently that I use exclamation points a lot in my e-mails! It's an odd thing, because I'm really a pretty low-key, laid back person, so I'm not sure where all this fervent punctuation is coming from! But it's a little annoying! Kind of like when I went through my "dash" stage -- dividing every sentence into two parts; if not three! Really -- I was taught better than this! I mean -- really!

Oh dang. I won.

I got a letter from the Publisher's Clearing House last week. For months now they've been sending me letters, about one every three weeks or so, full of instructions on how to enter. Several times I've found myself poring through the material, trying to find the gold stamp and the silver certificate and the Seal of Authenticity, gluing them all in their proper places on the response form, hands aquiver, thoughts cheerfully spending my millions of dollars, dreamily pondering what life would be like if I knew how to pay the mortgage every month...

So my excitement was worth of an exclamation point when I found a letter with the words "You Won" printed in 80 point Helvetica Black on the envelope sitting in my mailbox! I ripped the envelope open, dreaming of things such as food and clothing and other such riches.

"You've won!" the letter read. "You've received this certificate worth $400 off the price of a digital camcorder!" Hooray! I've always wanted a digital camcorder -- it would help my wedding photography tremendously! Exclamation points galore! I flipped the page over, only to learn that the camcorder in question cost over $600. There's no way I could come up with the $200+ needed to complete the deal.

So, yay. I won.

I think I'd rather have lost.

Offer o' the Day

If you've read this far, well, here's your reward:

I've decided to give stuff away today to the first person to order something from HippieBoy Design. That's, like, a $40 value!

That's an hour's free print design (business cards, business forms, letterhead, brochures, posters, whatever your little heart desires), if you order a web site I'll give you one extra page free, if you want a photo shoot, you get the first hour free...

Offer good from now to 5 p.m. Central, today only (Wednesday, April 8).

Have a happy day!

Wedding Package

2009-04-04T09:15:00.002-05:00

Hey, anyone traveling to Iowa to get married in the near future, I do wedding photography at reasonable rates! I'm serious. www.hippieboydesign.com for details. I also do graphic design, so I can do invites, thank-you's, etc...

Sadness

2009-03-30T18:49:00.001-05:00

I think my happy little daydream of working for myself is about over. I'm in serious need of a job. I'm qualified to teach college, do farm work, and anything in between. Some people think I'm a quick learner, so I'm not afraid to try something new.

If anyone hears of any openings, please let me know.

How to Impress Your Customers

2009-03-28T10:53:00.002-05:00

The following is an e-mail I sent to one of my customers. She had ordered prints of her daughter's senior pictures -- I was supposed to leave them on my front porch for her to pick up, but I forgot and left them in my car. My beloved Austrian wife Dagmar helped me remedy the situation...

Hello!

As you know, I forgot to put your photos on the porch. When you rang the doorbell last night, Dagmar and I were just finishing up a late supper, sitting in our jammies on the couch, eating off the coffee table. Poor Dagmar's all concerned about having a spotless house, so when the doorbell rang she panicked! I feel bad that we made you stand on the porch... Anyway, she ran out the back door in her coat and nighty to get the photos out of the car.

Once you left, she said, "Gosh, that vas embarrassing! The poor lady nearly saw our messy house!"

"Her husband probably saw more than that," I said.

"Vhat do you mean?"

"Did you actually get into our car, or did you just bend over and get the photos out?" I pointed to her rather short nighty.

She thought for a moment, then, "I just bent over... OH MEIN GOTT! When I went outside the motion light came on. If anyone was in the street, I mooned them!"

"Yep, I think her husband was in the car."

"I MOONED OUR BEST CUSTOMER'S HUSBAND!"

I laughed so hard I about fell off the couch...

Random Photos

2009-03-26T09:12:00.001-05:00

Ain't much happenin'...

2009-03-25T16:17:00.002-05:00

You know you're getting old when you can't wait for quitting time -- not so you can go out to meet your friends, but rather so you can take a nice nap...

An Honor Indeedy!

2009-03-22T12:31:00.002-05:00

Yay! I won! I won!

I have been tagged with this little piece of kindness:

“These bloggers are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.”

I put the picture of the award over to the right there... No, a little lower. You might have to scroll down. Oh, never mind...

I actually am pretty honored, actually. This sort of stuff can make my day! Okay, now I gotta find eight more bloggers upon which to bestow this honor. In no particular order:

Deeper End of Chaos -- a day-by-day journey through life.

Steakbellie -- must be busy as the posts are sporadic, but always thoughtful.

Great Aunt Cleo's Hat Pin -- poetic and musical, written by a fellow bassist.

Rocketradio -- Kat Rocket's place. No sacred cows allowed. Much fun will be had.

Passion of the Dale -- quirky in a polite and civil tone that belies much depravity.

Gifts from a Broad -- The Lady who Doesn't Lunch makes daily life WAY more interesting!

Chewing Through the Straps -- SkyDad's little piece of down-home oddness.

Save Your Generation -- possibly the oddest thing I've ever seen, with the exception, maybe of Grant Miller.

There are a TON of people out here who deserve this happy little award. I'm sad I can only choose eight!

Gaaah...

2009-03-22T11:08:00.002-05:00

Computer from Hell Update

Yesterday (Saturday) I got an e-mail from the owner of the computer shop where my poor iMac has been held hostage since February 23rd (not counting a two-day period when I was allowed to bring it home).
"We'll have your Mac ready for you by three," he said.

After my laughter died down, I wrote back, "Wheee! Happy dance! Happy dance! But don't you guys need to test it for a few days?"

His answer was almost immediate. "No. We'll have your machine put together by two. You can pick it up at three."

I told Dagmar about it. "The computer guy said he'll have my Mac done at three today." I haven't heard her laugh so hard, so long, in months. When she stopped wheezing and wiping giggle-tears from her eyes, she said, "So, what shall we do today?"

"Well," I answered, "since there's no chance I'll have my computer until Tuesday night, let's go to the IRCC meeting, then go to a park or something. We'll make a day of it."

"Oh, you think you'll have your computer Tuesday already?" Dagmar answered as she gathered her stuff. "You won't see it until Wednesday, and that's IF the repairs were done right. Chances are they'll need to replace something else now and it'll take another week."

So without another thought about the computer we left town. At about 3:30 (I think) my phone rang. The computer shop.

"Hello, we have good news!"

"I can pick my computer up?"

"Well, no," the man said, "but we're nearly done putting it back together. I'll load some random software on it tonight and we'll test the hard drive over the weekend. If it all works, you can probably pick it up Monday or Tuesday..." I suppressed a giggle.

"Just out of curiosity," I asked, "why does this take so long? I mean, you're just replacing a cable." I've asked this question about five times, and each time I get a slightly different answer.

"Well, for your model of computer we have to take the entire machine apart to get to the cable, then reassemble the whole thing from scratch. It takes about eight hours if you're not interrupted." ("Interrupted by ME," I thought to myself -- I tend to call the shop several times a day.)

"Okay, so if there are two possible things wrong with my computer, the SATA cable and the power supply, and replacing the SATA cable takes eight hours, why didn't you try the power supply FIRST? That only takes minutes to replace."

"Well, the book says that we're supposed to replace the cable first." ("Yeah," I thought to myself, "so you can charge the customer for eight hours' labor, even though there's a 50/50 chance that's not the problem.")

And so there we are. Tomorrow will mark the one-month anniversary of when I took my machine into the shop to get the hard drive replaced. Tomorrow night will be the one-month anniversary of the first broken promise, as the shop told me way back then that they'd have my problem fixed "by the end of the day." A month ago.

I can't complain too awful much (though I really want to!) -- the shop gave me a loaner iMac to use (though it has a quarter the RAM my machine has so it's awfully slow running memory-hogs like PhotoShop and InDesign and is built with an older architecture that won't run half my design software), and I really like the owner of the shop... But gosh, it seems like every day they give me one or two promises, and have not yet kept a single one. That's the frustrating part! I understand that these things can take time, that sometimes parts get backordered, things go wrong... But gosh, don't promise me things you can't deliver! It's infuriating!

What the Duck

2009-03-20T12:42:00.001-05:00

What the Duck is a fantastic comic that my buddy e-mails me every now and then. I guess it's animated now, too...

No! No. No. No. No! No. No.

2009-03-18T07:38:00.003-05:00

I just heard the bozos at AIG just took OUR tax money and GAVE IT TO THEMSELVES rather than use it to better the economy.

No! No! No! No!

You guys make it hard for me to keep from using bad language.

After we bailed out the insurance company with billions and billions of taxpayer money, the @ssclowns at AIG went and gave away million-dollar bonuses to their executives. These are the people who made the bad decisions that killed our economy -- now each executive that helped make those decisions is walking off with ANOTHER $1,000,000 of our money.

Okay, morons -- I want YOU to figure out how much of MY money went into your company, and I want YOU TO GIVE IT BACK TO ME. NOW.

Give me back my money! Give it! I'm not kidding!

I'm going to call them later today and report it as a claim. I'm gonna tell them to cough up the dough, and I quite possibly might get indignant... Here's there contact info:

Auto/Homeowners Claims: 888-244-6163. For all other inquiries -- USA: 1-877-638-4244 Worldwide: +1-908-679-3150

You know...

2009-03-17T15:08:00.002-05:00

...Sometimes I really do wish I had a ShamWow. But I don't know what I'd do with it.

...The grass really isn't greener on the other side. It's not really green anywhere around here right now.

...Every now and then I get the impression that my dog and cat are smarter than me.

Ridiculous Stuff

2009-03-13T08:25:00.002-05:00

Computers

Yep, I'm working on a "loaner." I appreciate the fix it shop letting me use an old iMac until mine is fixed, but gosh do I miss my machine! This one's got a quarter the RAM and, well, it's slow. A lot of my software won't work because this is a PowerPC iMac and my software needs the newer Pentium models... But at least I'm working!

Now if I just had a little more to work on...

Goofiness

I saw on TV that a lot of Republicans are up in arms over the budget, claiming there are too many earmarks and "pork" projects. Turns out this portion of the budget is less than 2% of the total... They're rejecting 98% good to kill 2% that they perceive as bad.

Well, I can still understand that -- I mean, who wants wasteful spending?

Then I saw Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on TV bashing the budget, saying that President Obama should cut all earmarks from the bill. The TV host pointed out that Graham himself had inserted a measure in the budget that would send over $900,000 to South Carolina. "Yes," said Graham. "And if the President cuts that I'll put it into another bill." In other words, he wants everyone else's pet projects cut, just not HIS. A little more research shows that Graham's state would receive over $75 million in earmarks. (Thankfully during this housing crisis $285,000 of it, or 0.0038%, will go towards improving low-income housing in the state.)

Then I read that in spite of all their complaints, Republicans themselves are responsible for nearly half the earmarks in the bill.

I hope President Obama does take measures to limit pork spending and earmarks. I realize it was too late for him to do so on this year's budget as the budget is already six months behind (which means it should have passed under the Bush administration, who was a strong proponent of earmark spending), but I hope the Obama administration takes this issue to heart next year.

But it just doesn't make sense to me that the Republicans are all hollering at President Obama for a budget THEY put together with THEIR earmarks.

Oh well.

Incidentally, one of the earmarks comes from my own Senator -- Tom Harkin (D-IA). It would give several million dollars to find a way to make hog production less... odoriferous. This sounds funny -- spending money to make pigs stink less -- but if you've ever been within five miles of a hog confinement, you KNOW something needs to be done about this! If someone can come up with a bacteria or something that can help reduce the odor from the waste lagoons, that would make rural areas a much happier place! I mean, if you have 5,000 hogs living in a confined area, you're gonna have waste management issues... It's a real concern.

Same goes to having 435 United States Representatives in a confined area, actually.

The whole thing is ridiculous. Let's just make it illegal to put this kind of stuff in a bill. If you want money to de-stinkify pigs or build a bridge or whatever, make it a stand-alone piece of legislation. These projects are actually all pretty important to the people living in those areas. They shouldn't be dealt with in such a sneaky manner.

Gettin' Itchy

It's been a long, cold winter. We've had a few days of warmth and sunshine, but overall it's been a nasty season. The past few days we've had highs in the teens and 20's and lows below zero. It's not supposed to be like that in mid-March!

But thankfully the weather broke yesterday and we got up to about 28 degrees. Today it's supposed to be in the 40's, which is about normal for this time of year.

I WILL be getting the bike out of storage Sunday! It's gotta happen -- I'm getting just a wee bit stir-crazy...

Computer Update (or "The Continuation of My Infinite Woes")

2009-03-10T07:39:00.002-05:00

Well, they gave me a loaner, finally. It's got a quarter the RAM my machine had so it's really slow, and half my Adobe software won't even attempt to install on this old iMac (it's a PowerPC rather than Pentium), so I'm working with one hand tied behind my back, but I AM working. Yesterday I was at the computer shop at 8:02 a.m. to pick the loaner up (it was supposed to be ready for me Friday night, then Saturday morning, then Saturday afternoon, then "I'll have a guy drop it off at your house Sunday," then Monday morning) only to find that the tech wasn't in yet. "He's not supposed to come in until noon, but he said he'd be here at nine today." So I go walk the dog and come back at nine. The tech said, "It'll be just seven minutes!" I waited from 9 to 9:30. He came up and told me, "Just ten more minutes!" I waited until 10:30 before he came up to me and said, "I just started to restore the information from your backup now, it'll take at least a few hours."

"Whaaa?" What have they been doing? Why did he tell me it would be "seven minutes" if he KNEW he hadn't even started the restoration yet?

He's done this to me time after time -- last week he promised he'd have my computer fixed Thursday night, then he said I could pick it up Friday. Friday he told me it would be "just a few hours." On Saturday he called me to tell me he was "Starting to run some tests." Man, I can understand that this stuff takes time, but you HAVE to know that you're not going to have a new hard drive formatted, restored, and installed in "a couple hours" if you haven't even started yet...

I didn't get the loaner until after 7 last night. "I had to cancel your backup, so you might not have everything on your hard drive that you need." Fine, fine, just give me my backup drive then -- I'll go through my data folder by folder and find what's missing. Turns out he hadn't gotten around to restoring anything but my apps and photos -- all my data and working files were missing, the apps didn't work because some of the system files weren't there (Adobe's "common" files, notably)... So I had to reinstall all my applications. That led to licensing problems with Adobe, so now I'm on the phone with them...

But I AM up and running! Slowly and staggeringly, but I'm running.

I actually like the guys at the shop, believe it or not, and I'm sure the tech has been working on my problem. It's the false promises that anger me. If, on Thursday, he'd have said, "I'll do my best, but it might be next Tuesday before I can get you up and running," well, I'd have been disappointed. But I would have been able to give MY customers a solid answer when they called asking about their projects, and I could have gone and done something else rather than sitting by the phone for five days.

Led by the nose...

2009-03-08T17:26:00.002-05:00

...like a lamb to the slaughter.

I know I'm mixing metaphores, but I don't really care...

My worst fears are coming to fruition. The computer people have had my machine for four days now. I just got a call -- "We put a third hard drive into your computer, and it went bad before we could even format it. There's something ELSE wrong that's causing the hard drives to fail."

The guy continued to tell me it could be the power supply, the cord that runs from the power supply to the mother board, or the mother board itself. This is all correct -- these are things that have run through my mind as well.

"So how much money are we talking about?" I asked.

"Well, the cord isn't much," he answered, " and the power supply isn't a big deal either."

"But...?"

"But if it's the motherboard you'd be better off buying a new computer."

I knew that this was gonna cost me money. I knew it. I could have written the script myself, actually. But for gosh sakes I hope it's not the motherboard... I mean, if it's $20 for a cord or $50 for a power supply, I can borrow that much. If it's $2500, I'm outta business for sure.

Maybe this is God's way of telling me to study for my CDL so I can drive grain trucks for the farmers, or to see if Pop's neighbors need help with the hogs this year... Heck, I can't be any more broke, I might as well run for public office. I don't know what to think. All I know is that I hate living this close to the edge. One thing goes wrong, I'm screwed... When I started HippieBoy Design I really thought I'd have at least six or eight months to build up a nestegg before things started going wrong...

Oh well. We ARE healthy (though Dagmar has some tests coming up next week), and I can find other work, I'm sure. But gosh is this ever disappointing. To have my hopes dashed by a lousy short in a computer... Gaaahhh...

I can't believe this is happening...

2009-03-05T13:38:00.001-06:00

The new hard drive on my computer died. I lost nearly four days of work last week and paid $320 for a replacement hard drive, now the new one's kaput.

I'm at wit's end.

Winter Sucks

2009-03-02T16:22:00.001-06:00

I'm so cabin-fevered-stir-crazy I just found myself not only talking to my computer, but I was actually answering junk mail early today in hopes they'd e-mail me back...

They haven't.

But I still have hope.

Miscellaneous Notes

2009-03-01T07:47:00.004-06:00

The Time Has Come

My beloved Alpine Snickerdoodle Dagmar and I used to make it a point to go out to eat together (or with friends) once a week. We've found that we really need the time together just to sit and talk, with no TV burbling in front of us, no computer sitting in the other room calling out, "You know you have e-mail... There's work to be done..." So for the past few years we've made it a habit to get out at least once a week where we can talk sans distractions. We rarely went anywhere fancy -- usually Green Gables (a local restaurant, the kind where a little old lady with a cigarette in her mouth would pad over with a plate of liver 'n onions and meatloaf, "There you go honey,") or Da Kao, a Vietnamese place a few blocks away where two people can still eat for fourteen bucks...

But when I quit my job to start HippieBoy Design ("Now offering print design and video compositing as well as phantastic photography and affordable web design!") money got even tighter than it was before -- and lack of bread was the main reason I quit my job in the first place -- so our dining experiences turned from an hour's conversation over a plate of The Daily Special at the diner to an occasional five-dollar footlong from Subway, shared off a paper plate in front of the TV. Then those fell by the wayside as well...

Dagmar's a wonderful cook, and I'm not afraid to eat my own cooking, but we both missed going out every now and then.

So Friday we went with some friends to a local pizza place. We had a great time! I found that I've been so isolated the past few months working at home with no transportation that being around a crowd of lively people was slightly unnerving. Dagmar told me I looked like a prairie dog sticking his head out of his hole watching a herd of bison go past. "You couldn't keep still," she said, "you had to see everting dat vas going on!" Regardless, we really enjoyed being out, being with friends, money be damned.

Then we went on to a local comedy club hosted by a friend of ours (he actually introduced Dagmar and I nearly a decade ago). As a professional comedian himself he MC'd the show... It was really fun! Money be damned.

After that we stopped in a local watering hole, the Chesterfield, and watched Roger and the Rockers play for an hour or so. I guess three members of the band are in the Iowa Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (which is a surprisingly talented organization, actually). I do know that I enjoyed listening to them -- I always like hearing Curt play bass. Money be damned.

So now we're poor, but reasonably happy, in a mild, Midwestern sort of way. (Except that my beloved Austrian Pookiebear Dagmar has had a migraine the last day and a half. Poor girl!)

A Time of Reconciliation

For the last several years we've had friends involved in an ongoing feud. Not just a mild sniping or dirty looks kind of feud, but an active, old-fashioned Hatfield vs. McCoy type feud. Dirty tricks, hateful words, barely contained anger.

Normally this sort of thing wouldn't bother me a whole lot -- I'm not one to stick my nose into other people's business (unless, of course, I want to) -- but this feud has affected three families for years, to the extent where when Dagmar and I would run into our friends all we could talk about was the feud. Nothing else. (A typical conversation in the grocery store might be, "Oh, hey! I haven't seen you in months. How's your wife? How are the kids doing?" with the answer being, "You'll never guess what so-and-so did last week!") It was so bad that one of my friends wouldn't even go to a funeral because he thought he might run into the other end of the feud...

But the first words of apology and reconciliation were spoken yesterday!

I'm happy that my friends can get their lives back in order and quit focusing all their energies on hatred and anxiety!

Sadly, we seem to have another set of friends who are on the verge of falling into this same sort of feud... I hope the season of understanding and reconciliation lasts a little while longer.

Yay! March is Here! It's Spring!

I'm really tired of wearing two or three layers of clothing ALL THE TIME. Ah well...

Life in the 'Hood SUX

I still can't believe our airline designation here in Sioux City is "SUX." Whaddaya wanna guess was the subject of the first joke the comedian told last Friday...?

Anyway.

We got home about midnight Friday night and promptly settled in for the night. Dagmar put on her comfy nightshirt (the one with the little kitties on it) and wandered off to bed, rubbing her eyes. I made some popcorn and made myself a nest on the couch in front of the TV and prepared to sleep through a rerun of Star Trek: The Next Generation that I'd recorded. About the time we all got settled -- the dog on her little bed next to Dagmar, the cat snoozing on my feet on the couch -- Dagmar hissed, "Vhat was dat?"

"What was what?" I hissed back. When someone hisses at you, there's generally a reason, so I always hiss back. It seems polite, somehow.

"Someone's pounding at the back door!"

Hmmm... That's unusual. The back door in question leads from our kitchen through a very small porch (full of junk at the moment) to the alley. We have no yard to the south or east of our house, so the door really does open right into the alley... We locked the door years and years ago and haven't ever used it. I tried to get it open a few summers back for some reason, but it's stuck shut. Needless to say, visitors rarely knock at our back door -- especially at about one-thirty in the morning.

I heaved my flabby carcass off the couch, thoroughly confusing the cat who had up to that moment been happily sleeping on my feet, and went to the front door, thinking to ease the door open and peek around the corner of the house to see what was going on... But I'd forgotten about the three or four inches of snow that had fallen during the night. Back inside trots the hippie. Shoes on feet, I tried again.

I eased the front door open, not difficult to do as the porch door is broken and swings freely on its hinges, and peeked around the corner.

Sure enough, there was a large man in the alley, beating drunkenly on our door. As I watched he paused, took a step backwards, then tripped in slow motion over something invisible and feel backwards gracefully into the snow. He lay (lie? layed? lied?) there for a moment, then struggled back to his feet. I could see several other "snow angels" in the alley where he'd evidently already fallen. He stared doggedly at the door and was getting set to start pounding again.

"Can I help you?" I called.

He tried to stop in mid-pound, which only resulted in his slumping bodily against the door. He looked up the alley, pushed himself off the door frame, and staggered back a step or two. "Can I help you?" I repeated.

"Oh!" he said. "Yeah. I'm just, um, tryin' to get into my house, but someone changed the goddam lock and my goddam roommate won't open the goddam door." The whole time he spoke these words he was again falling in slow motion, gradually twisting around to face me while simultaneously slumping to the ground. I walked up the alley to help him to his feet. As I got closer I could see that he wasn't wearing anything but tennis shoes, blue jeans, and a T-shirt that looked like he may have been ill already that evening. Thankfully he rolled over on his hands and knees and started to right himself before I was close enough to feel obligated to help.

"I'm sorry," I said to him, "but this is my house."

"Yeah," he answered, waving at my back door, "thish is my house."

"No, this is MY house."

"Whaaa?" He looked up and down the alley. "Your house?"

"Where do you live?" I asked. "Do you need help getting home?"

"I thought I lived goddam here," he said, weaving badly enough I thought he was gonna fall over yet again. "Where's goddam Tomás? I live with goddam Tomássssh."

"I think he lives in that house," said a voice behind me. I nearly jumped out of my skin -- I hadn't heard Dagmar come up behind me. "A man named Tomás lives over there," she pointed to a house two doors down. "Do you live there?"

"I'm gonna go that way," the man said, pointing south. "I think I live that way." He then started off up the street, headed east...

Thirty seconds later I was on the phone. "Nine-one-one, what's your emergency?" said the tinny voice.

"No emergency," I said. "But a drunk guy was pounding on our side door. He didn't cause any harm, but he's gonna freeze to death out there..."

Fifteen minutes later a police cruiser drove slowly past our house. I hope they found the guy. I hope they just took him home.

That Ominous Dark Cloud is Back

2009-02-23T14:42:00.003-06:00

My iMac died today... It froze and wouldn't restart. It would get to the little apple symbol on the startup screen and go no further.

I did some diagnostics, everything checked out okay except it couldn't figure out what kind of hard drive was in the machine. I put the system CD in with hopes of reinstalling the OS or even reformatting the drive (I back my system up on an external drive every couple days, just did it yesterday, so I wouldn't lose much), but the installer kept telling me I didn't have a hard drive in the computer anywhere. I told it to look under the couch, but it was adamant -- no hard drive.

So now my Mac is at the fixit shop. I hope it doesn't cost much to fix -- things are tight enough that this might be the end of my little business...

I'm scared.

Tagged

2009-02-21T09:43:00.002-06:00

I've been tagged. Oh, the joy of having friends!

The rules:
1. Link to the person that tagged you
2. Post the rules on your blog
3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself
4. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs
5. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.
6. Let your tagger know when your entry is up.

Okay... I'm a sucker for these things. Oh wait! I can use that!

1. I'm a sucker for these things. I don't know if I have an unmet need to parade the innermost parts of myself in front of the world, or if I'm just too polite to decline the request, but I always play these reindeer games. And I usually enjoy it.

2. I enjoy letting my hair down while it air-dries. My beloved wife Dagmar alvays tells me, "Don't do dat -- it makes you look like a vildman!" I guess at my advanced and increasingly creaky age I sorta like looking like a wildman... And it gives me a headstart on my impending cootdom.

3. Every day I wash my nose out with a saline solution (1 cup warm water, 1/8 tsp. baking soda or baking powder or whatever it is in that yellow box, and 1/8 tsp. salt). Whatcha do is get yourself a turkey-baster thingy, stand over the sink, crank your noggin around as much as you can, and squirt water into one nostril until it starts coming out the other. Then you just kinda irrigate for a while. Tip your head the other way and do it with the other nose-hole. You'd be ASTOUNDED how much goop gets washed out, and how much crud you get when you blow your beak afterwards. I haven't had a head cold since I started doing this.

4. I've found that I have horrible stage fright UNLESS I'm in control of the stage. When I was an officer in the American Legion Riders I had to give a little officer report at every meeting, and it scared the bejeezuz outta me. I'd sit there and wait my turn, rehearsing the words over and over in my mind, until finally it was my time to give my report -- and I'd freeze. Invariably. But now that I'm the President and I run the meetings, I'm fine. I don't know if it's a control issue, or if I finally realized that when I'm at an ALR meeting I'm surrounded by some of the best friends I'll ever have, and why be nervous in front of your friends?

5. I will trim my fingernails any time and any place the whimsy strikes me. I always have to be reminded that it's rude. I don't want to be rude, mind you, but I have a gift for it...

6. Lately I've spent so much time on FaceBook that not much else is getting done...

I'm not really gonna tag anyone (I hate to force people to do things) but I'd like to see Soul Pump, Veggie Killer, and maybe Dad Andersen's answers if they wanna play along... (Dad A. has often railed against the silliness of posting things about yourself in public places, so it'll be interesting to see if he plays along.)

Ode to my Wife

2009-02-17T17:05:00.001-06:00

I love Jesus...

2009-02-07T16:25:00.001-06:00

I wish puppies could purr

2009-02-06T06:46:00.003-06:00

Things I wish:

I wish people wouldn't swear on TV. (I'm not calling for censorship, mind you, I just wish people would have the decency to self-censor when the cameras are pointed at them.)
I wish I hadn't made decaf this morning.
I wish the ice on my driveway would melt.
I wish President Obama well. He's got a tough row to how.
I wish my wife felt better. I really wish my wife felt better.
I wish I could speak Esperanto. And German. And Latin.
I wish puppies could purr.
I wish the people who make Internet browsers were forced into w3c compliance rather than the 2 million web designers. (At the moment if you want to design a web site that looks the same in FireFox, Chrome, Safari, Opera and Internet Explorer you have to write your code in a horribly uncomfortable way as the different browsers all use different conventions. Wouldn't it be easier for the BROWSERS to be forced to use one language rather than making all the web designers in the world learn all the foibles of each browser?)
I wish I knew how to run my business well.
I wish Putin would just go away.
I wish my cat weren't diabetic, the poor little guy. He takes his shots so well every day...
I wish common courtesy was more common.
I wish Fred Phelps would realize, could realize the pain he's caused spreading his hatred. If you don't know Mr. Phelps, you can go to his website at www.godhatesfags.com to see his venom. You can also learn about how bikers have banded together to stop this man and his church from disrupting the funerals of soldiers at www.patriotguard.org. Yes, Mr. Phelps leads his church when the protest at military funerals, waving signs reading "God Hates Fags," "God Hates America," and "God Bless IED's" (improvised explosive devices). Can you imagine losing your son, husband, father in Iraq, then having these guys show up at the funeral? So the Patriot Guard formed so we can stand in a line between the protesters and the grieving families. No one would care if the Westboro Baptist Church would protest in the grocery store parking lot, but at a funeral? Aw, come on... And they're not even protesting the war, they're protesting homosexuality for some reason. At a funeral. Kinda makes me wonder if Mr. Phelps isn't hiding something, actually... (When my wife and I heard about all this it took us about twelve seconds to join the Patriot Guard.)
I wish it didn't take so much time out of the day to shower, brush teeth, find clean clothes, eat, etc. A guy I know once said, "If it weren't for the necessities of being a carbon-based life form I could get a LOT more work done," and I know exactly what he means.
I wish greedy people weren't.
I wish I had an Egg McMuffin.
I wish our school systems could truly teach the next generation. We're falling behind. Maybe fund the schools so they could go to an 11-month school year or something? Take two weeks off for Christmas and two in the summer -- that's still a week's more vacation than I had after 15 years at the print shop...
I wish I knew earlier in life that most of the time people are cruel out of a sense of insecurity. It's rare to find a self-confident bully. In fact, often the more a person feels the need to bully or dominate others, the smaller his/her delicate little ego. Truly self-confident people lead or inspire without belittling others. (Something to remember next time you vote...)
I wish I'd spent more time with family when I was younger.
I wish I spent more time with family now.
I wish I didn't have to worry constantly about money.
I wish my wife didn't have to worry constantly about money.
I wish I could be more assertive at times. I tend to ask permission too often rather than just doing what's right.
I wish all Americans could speak intelligible English.
I wish people would realize that we need to take our lives back from the oil companies for two reasons. If you don't believe that carbon-based emissions are helping global warming, can you at least stipulate that it's STUPID for us to keep buying oil from foreign countries -- especially when many of them give naught but lip service to stopping terrorism? We're funding the people who want to kill us. Regardless of the price of gas, please don't buy a bigger car than you need. Encourage legislation that helps Detroit retool for electric, biofuels, hybrids, etc.
I wish the roads weren't icy. I miss my motorcycle.
I wish I could relax.
I wish Verizon would quit sending me e-mails telling me I'm eligible to upgrade my phone. Since when do I have to be "eligible" to buy something? If I want to buy a new phone, I'll go buy one. And why do they think I want to upgrade my phone anyway? Was the one they sold me last year so shoddily manufactured they assume it's broken by now? Do they think I didn't know what I wanted when I bought my last phone? I'm perfectly happy with what I have.
I wish I had an iPhone. They look SO much cooler than my cruddy old phone...
I wish they wouldn't make science fiction movies so spooky.
I wish cats had eyebrows so you could tell what they were thinking...
I wish I could sleep.

Whoa...

2009-02-05T09:02:00.001-06:00

I stole this from Dale...

It's something to do...

2009-02-03T06:41:00.002-06:00

One of my Legion Rider guys noticed a few months ago that the local Head Start (a preschool program for underprivileged children) didn't have any American flags in their three classrooms. I sent out an e-mail to our group and within minutes an anonymous buddy of mine replied with "I'll buy them flags and stands, no problem."

A few weeks later three boxes were delivered to me. Three flags, three stands, three poles... Nice flags, too -- the kind with the gold braid and fringe and an eagle on the top. (I looked it up online -- this guy shelled out over $250 out of his own pocket to buy the flags and give them to children!)

This morning a group of us are taking off work and trekking to neighboring village Le Mars to donate the flags and give the four-year-olds a brief lesson on what the flag represents and the history of the flag. "The children are so excited," the Head Start lady told me on the phone. "They've been practicing a special song for you guys."

Children scare me. Especially when they're in groups. I have NO idea what we're gonna say or how to teach children...

Wish me luck.

The Daily Grind

2009-01-27T06:00:00.002-06:00

P.U. (Politics as Usual)

It's bothersome. The same conservative pundits and politicians that were, not too long ago, calling anyone who criticized then-President George W. Bush un-American and were up in arms over any perceived slight are now criticizing finally-President Barack H. Obama themselves. It's as if they have no memories, or as if we'll not notice their arrogance.

"But this hate stuff, this rooting for the administration to fail in Iraq and other areas is un-American, unbecoming, and unacceptable. Like him or not, Mr. Bush is the elected leader of this country..." said Bill O'Reilly last spring.

"I want him to fail," said Rush Limbaugh recently. He then repeated it. "I want Barack Obama to fail."

So, according to Republican pundit O'Reilly's standards, Republican pundit Limbaugh is un-American. I'm not surprised -- Limbaugh lambasted the military records of both John Kerry and Al Gore, both of whom volunteered to serve in the midst of the Vietnam war, both of whom DID serve in the Vietnam war while Limbaugh himself managed to get out of the draft because -- and I'm serious -- he had a painful pimple on his posterior. Limbaugh then lied about it, claiming that he was declared unfit for military service due to a high school football injury. (None of this is any of my business, mind you. I could care less about Mr. Limbaugh, his decision NOT to serve the country when the country needed him, and his painful pimple -- except that Limbaugh threw the first stone. Seems to me that choosing not to go to war is a personal choice that can be respected, UNTIL you make the choice not to go to war and then criticize those who did for not doing more.)

So now Mr. Limbaugh has repeatedly say that he wants President Obama, and by extension the United States, to fail. I know a lot of people who were critical of the Bush administration, but I never heard anyone say they wanted Mr. Bush to fail -- most people realize that America's well-being rests upon the President's success, and that failure will hurt REAL AMERICAN PEOPLE. Evidently, Mr. Limbaugh doesn't care much about real American people.

Right-wing arrogance.

Now on to left-wing arrogance...

Milorod R. Blagojević, Democratic Governor of Illinois, is currently absent. He was arrested on federal corruption charges a while back -- not for just one or two things, but if I remember right there were 21 charges on the arrest. The Illinois State Legislature took a vote to proceed with Mr. Blagojevich's impeachment.

The vote was 114-1 in favor of ousting the Governor. A second vote was held (I'm not sure why). The second vote was 117-1 in favor of impeachment, Blagojevich's sole supporter his sister-in-law.

So you'd think that Mr. Blagojevich would, in these times of financial crisis, do the right thing and step aside, rather than putting his state through the expensive of a lengthy trial and all the other goofy stuff that goes along with an impeachment. But he's not. In fact, while the impeachment proceedings are happening in his home state, Mr. Blagojevich isn't even present -- he's on a media tour on the East Coast, hitting all the morning news shows and whatnot in order to plead his case.

Okay. Mr. Blagojevich has NOT been convicted of his alleged crimes, though he has been arrested. He IS innocent until proven guilty. No one's arguing that. However, Mr. Blagojevich is in a position of power, and has been accused of blackmailing a children's hospital (threatening to withhold $18 million in state funding to the hospital until the hospital donated $50,000 to his re-election campaign) as well as trying to "sell" President Barack Obama's former Senate seat. This, combined with the fact that the Governor will not be able to perform his duties when he goes to court to defend himself leads the Illinois legislature to proceed with impeachment hearings -- they simply want Mr. Blagojevich out of office for the good of the state.

It's time for Mr. Blagojevich to do the right thing. Take responsibility for your actions. Your statements are on tape. Admit it. Step aside. Spare us the circus and the expense of lengthy impeachment hearings. This is NOT personal, at least at this point -- the Illinois people simply want a governor they can trust, and a governor who will be able to do his job without the distraction of federal legal proceedings. Your ego is getting in the way of the betterment of the state.

Back to Iowa... I saw our very own Fifth District Representative, Mr. Steven Arnold King (R-Kiron) was spotlighted (spotlit?) on The Daily Show last night. Seems Mr. King is worried that with Guantanamo Bay closing, someone will forget to read 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed his Miranda rights, at which point the terrorist will run across the street to an embassy and request political asylum in the United States. Then the terrorist will run across yet another street to a courthouse where he'll promptly be given citizenship - never mind that everyone in the nation knows how dangerous the terrorist is, that there's no way he could be given asylum, and that citizenship is a years-long process even if the terrorist (who hates the United States) would want such a thing.

Seriously. My congressman is worried about this. I've seldom seen a man so driven by fear and paranoia.

As Jon Stewart said, these guys aren't just gonna be walking around. They're enemy combatants. They'll be in prison.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Guantanamo Baywatch - The Final Season

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Okay, I'm done with politics for the month. Feel free to mingle among yourselves.

Random Musings

2009-01-20T12:56:00.002-06:00

Hey, did anyone see the sun come out earlier today? Why is everyone walking around smiling and happy? Man, the birds really are singing loud all of a sudden... Something must have changed.

Just heard that a buddy of mine won the Folk Rising 2008 Album of the Year. He won 2007, too. If you get a minute, go check out Mat D.

I was elected President of the Northwest Iowa American Legion Riders last weekend. I hope I'm up to the task. It's a good group! Nearly 140 of the best people you'd ever care to know... I hope I don't let them down. I have lots of help, though -- these guys would give the shirt off their back (and would, consequently, show lots of tattoos).

Business is slow. I've been running scared ever since I quit my job back in September. Does it ever get better? I've gotta advertise, just not sure where. Yellow Pages?

I just heard that Senator Ted Kennedy had a seizure and was taken away from the Inaugural Luncheon in a wheelchair. Think what you may of the Senator, he's given a lot of years to public service. I wish him well, though I often didn't agree with his views.

Classy stuff...

Tuck and Run

2009-01-17T08:38:00.004-06:00

"No, I need a bigger wedge please."

The nice dental hygienist dentist helper lady nodded and disappeared from my limited field of vision. A second later she reappeared and handed something to the dentist. I couldn't see what it was, this wedge they were messing with, but I imagined it was probably about the size of a doorstop.

I decided to try to ignore the activity happening above me. No matter what they're doing, it can't be fun. For the last half hour I'd been trying to figure out exactly what tools and clamps and such were stuck in my mouth, but my imagination was starting to scare me. Okay... Go to my happy place. Last time I was here I found a crack in the ceiling that looked like Bart Simpson. I let my eyes roam the ceiling to see if I could spot it again...

"I'm going to need a bigger wedge. Give me the really big one over there."

I'd just spotted the Simpson crack and was looking for the funny dog when my musings were interrupted by what sounded like a wet German shepherd gargling oatmeal just half an inch from my right ear. It took a supreme effort not to jump, but with various instruments of dubious function jammed in my gaping maw I limited my reaction to a muffled "Whuuuaaaa!!!"

The dentist and dental hygienist dentist helper lady both froze. "Did that hurt? What's wrong?"

"Nuffing. Schorry." It's hard to talk when you have half a toolbox and three hands jammed in your mouth. The dentist and dental hygienist dentist helper lady both relaxed and went back to their business.

What in the world was that noise, though? What could sound like that? There it is again! "Wurbleglubglub blub." Oh... My right ear is about half an inch from the dentist's belly. Hmmm... I hadn't noticed that before. This seems a bit too... intimate. I'm not sure I'm happy with this.

"Okay, can you hand me that hammer, please?" said the dentist to the dental hygienist dentist helper lady. "Burgleburgleburgle," said his belly to me.

You know, it's about 11 in the morning. I'm getting a little hungry myself.

"Grrrrllummmp" said the dentist's belly. "Graaawwwwwwglub" said mine, loud enough I could hear it over the jackhammer in my mouth. The dental hygienist dentist helper lady stopped what she was doing and looked at my stomach.

Okay, now I'm trying not to laugh. My mouth is wide open with a post hole digger hanging out of it, a warning from the dentist "not to move," and now I've got the giggles.

"Blump!" said the dentist's belly. "Wuuuuurp," agreed my belly.

Now I'm shaking, making little meek "eee eee eee" noises, trying not to totally lose it. The dentist stopped what he was doing. "Does that hurt?" he asked.

"Naw. Schorry," I said. I caught sight of the dental hygienist dentist helper lady in the dentist's mirror. I could see she was trying not to laugh too.

"Glub," said the dentist's belly. "Wuuuuuurp."

"eee eee eee" I said. "Fliiiirrrrrrb," said my belly. The dental hygienist dentist helper lady started shaking with suppressed laughter. "What?" said the dentist. "What!" Both the lady and I shook our heads, not wanting to explain...

(I stole this picture from the Interwebs.)

Forty-five minutes later the dentist, still clueless about the concert he gave me, said, "Okay, that should be it! You're done for now."

I sat up, my head spinning a little from the combination of anesthesia, pain, and the trauma of having people banging, wrenching, drilling, and twisting my teeth for over an hour. "Thank God," I said. "I don't know if I could have stood it for another minute."

"Well, don't go too far," the dentist said, "you're scheduled for a cleaning now."

"What? You've gotta be kidding!"

"Nope. I have no sense of humor." About that time a lady peeked her head in the torture room. "Oh, hi Chris. Follow me, please."

Holding my jaw in one hand and my surprise in the other I followed meekly. Down the hall and into another torture room. I sat down and grabbed the armrests in the traditional "dentist office death grip." The lady grabbed a meat hook and asked me to open my mouth.

"Aaaahhhh," I said.

"Oh," she said. She poked around with her hook thingy. "Oh."

"Wha?"

She looked at some papers. "Oh." Then back in my mouth. "Oh." Then she picked up the papers and read them more carefully. "Hmmmm."

"What?" I said. "You're scaring me. What's wrong?"

"Well, you have a lot of..." Then she proceeded to go into a very technical explanation, very little of which I understood -- my mind was still reeling from the previous hour and a half in the other torture room. I caught a few words. "...under the gums," and "I bet that's really painful," and "we need to re-measure your gums," and "I bet that really hurts." I nodded, pretending to understand what was going on around me.

"Do you snack?" the lady asked me. "Do you have a favorite?"

"Yeah, I usually don't eat much except for sand and Jolt Cola," I answered. "Is that bad?"

"We're going to need to... Wait. Do you have insurance?"

If ever there's a warning flag in the dentist's office, that's it.

"I have a card my wife gave me this morning," I said. "She told me to give it to you." I wriggled my billfold out of my back pocket and handed her the four or five insurance cards I carry around. "It's one of these."

She took my insurance card and disappeared for a few minutes. Then came back. "Yep, you're covered," she said. "We're going to need to take some X-Rays."

"But you guys just did that a few months ago," I said.

"Well, we need to do it again so I know how to approach your problem." She grabbed a chunk of cardboard. "Here, put this in your mouth." Not having any choice, I did. She dropped the lead apron on me and ducked around the corner.

Now, I've had dental X-Rays taken five or six times in my life. Usually there are four "sessions." Four little pieces of cardboard, one at a time, that you gotta put in your mouth with the traditional "bite down, please, and hold still" while they aim something that looks like an animatronic dinosaur at your face. This was NOT like that at all. I don't know what they were doing, but I would estimate they took twenty or twenty-four X-Rays -- and only a few of them were with the little pieces of cardboard. Most of them were some chunk of... I don't know what it was, but it was on a big stick or clamp or something. "Okay, put this in your mouth," the lady would say, coming at me with something that looked like it was two feet square, aiming to jam it in my mouth.

Finally she finished with the X-Rays. "Okay," she said, "this will take us a few minutes. We need to develop them, then we put them all together and we'll have a good picture of your condition." I noticed that the whole time I'd been in this particular torture room she'd been referring to "my condition," but never once told me what it was. "I'll need you to go out in the waiting room and fill out this form, please," she said, handing me a clipboard with a piece of paper. "We'll come and get you when we're ready to start. This might take a while."

I mumbled something, grabbed the clipboard and staggered back to the waiting room. Flopping into the nearest chair, I glanced at the form. It was asking me what anesthetics I'm allergic to.

Wait. What are they planning to do to me? I thought I was coming in to get an imaginary cavity filled, but that was nearly two hours ago, and now they're talking about insurance and anesthetic and "my condition." This isn't good.

My jaw throbbed.

I found my phone in my pocket and dialed my favorite number.

"Hallo?" said my Beloved Viennese Bride, Dagmar.

"Hi Honey. What anesthesia am I allergic to?" I asked, holding onto my jaw.

"Vhat? Are you still at de dentist? Why are you still at de dentist? What do you mean, 'anesthesia?' Vhat are dey doing to you?"

"I don't know, Snookums," I said. "They filled a cavity I didn't know I had; now they want me to stay here and wait while they develop X-Rays and they're talking about putting me under, and I have a meeting in an hour... I just don't want to be here. My mouth hurts and I just don't want to be here." We chatted for a few minutes longer, then Dagmar said, "You just fill out your form. Take it up to the desk when the secretary's phone rings."

"What?" I asked. But she'd hung up already. I mentally shrugged to myself and filled out my form, rubbing my aching jaw, pausing every now and then to reflect on my upcoming misery. I still felt bruised from the dentist, now I gotta go back for more. Just as I finished the form, the secretary's phone rang. I reluctantly took the paper up to the desk, shuffling my feet. The secretary was still talking on the phone. I set the form down. I just don't want to be here, I thought. The secretary wasn't paying any attention to me. I gazed wistfully out the front door for a moment, wishing I was elsewhere, anywhere, then glanced back at the secretary. She was laughing into the phone now, not paying the slightest bit of attention...

I bolted. Out the door I ran. I was in the car and on the road in about twenty seconds. My cell phone rang. It was Dagmar. "I vunder if the secretary has noticed you've left," she said.

"How did you know I was gonna run away?" I asked.

"I know you very well," she said. "Just who do you think the secretary was talking to, anyway?"

It's all anyone can talk about...

2009-01-15T08:31:00.003-06:00

When the weather doohicky says -19, it's chilly. And it's getting colder. I can't imagine what Minnesota and Canada is like...

Things don't work right when it's this cold. Cars don't start. Windows don't roll down. Heck, even the door on our house was frozen shut due to condensation or some such mysterious natural phenomenon.

Thankfully we're nearly at the end of this cold snap -- tomorrow's supposed to be up in the 20's, which is about where we're supposed to be, then a warming trend for the weekend and next week! I haven't been counting, but I do know it's been over a month since I've been without my longjohns, two pairs of socks and two shirts. Iowa always has a cold spell every winter where it gets unnaturally cold for about a week, but it seems to me that we've been a bit too cold for a bit too long this year...

The dog, Zoey, scratches politely at the door, gazing soulfully at me with those big brown eyes, the phrase "I gotta pee" written all over her face. I open the door. The dog looks out and backs slowly away from the door... Ten minutes later we go through the same ritual. She just doesn't wanna step foot out the door. And I don't blame her.

Sunday Morning

2009-01-11T05:41:00.002-06:00

Stream o' Consciousness (such as it is)

Hey, I'd like to thank everyone for the offers to help with my PHP problems! It makes me feel WAY cool to have such good friends! Dad Andersen (with some help from the esteemed Poobomber) have hammered out some code that works for me. I really appreciate it!

Kinda torqued my toes, though -- not ten minutes after I uploaded a working file from Dad Andersen the server tech support people answered my e-mail from a week ago. "We just checked your site and we see you have the problem fixed. If you ever need assistance, feel free to contact us..." It upsets me because I've been asking tech support to help out with this for several weeks now. Not that I expect them to do my job, mind you, but all my code worked before they changed their procedures at the server level -- all I needed to know was how to alter my existing code to get it to work. They MUST have dealt with this before...

Ah well, the new code works better than the old; now I just gotta go through all my other sites and make the change. I imagine it shouldn't take more than a day or two.

Last Thursday I moderated a Leadership Siouxland class on "Arts in Siouxland." I've never done anything like that before... It's a bit nerve-wracking, at least the first time through.

We'd arranged for the class to go on a tour of a local landmark theater (it's positively stunning) for an hour, then move to the Chesterfield (a local club that has TONS of artwork on the walls, a good-sized stage, and plenty of room for this sort of thing) for dinner, a "mini art show," a live musician, a panel discussion, and a chance to meet one-on-one with local artists and musicians, and a live band afterwards. I was rather dismayed at the number of details and time it took for us to get everything to come together -- thankfully the other two people on the planning committee were top-notch organizers.

Things that I learned moderating the panel discussion:

1. It's always good to hold these types of things in establishments that sell booze.

2. Always include a professional comedian on the panel.

3. Oddly enough, the ONLY panelist (we had an artist, a musician, a comedian, a club owner/art buyer, critic, and Executive Director of the local Symphony) who made a full time living off art was the critic -- the one who didn't actually produce anything. Everyone else had day jobs. That surprised me.

Dagmar and I took the pup to a park yesterday. It was fun. The dog only ran away twice... But she came back twice, so it all worked out in the end.

I needs help...

2009-01-08T14:59:00.002-06:00

Anyone out there know how to get a PHP formmailer to work? Tech support is NOT helping, and I'm about at the end of my rope...

Nerved Up

2009-01-08T13:00:00.002-06:00

I Gots No Class

I'm gettin' kinda jittery. I've gotta moderate a civic leadership class tonight.

I'm not known for my moderation.

On the upside, my band's playing afterwards! That's always fun...

The Way Things Go...

2009-01-02T07:52:00.004-06:00

Aw poop.

I just found out that the server people I host all my sites through quit recognizing PHP form mails. Now I gotta learn something called PEAR, go through all 20+ sites I've designed over the years, figure out which ones use PHP and redo them...

I wish I understood this stuff better. I just wanna make pretty pictures for people -- this whole "coding" thing makes my head hurt. I'm so dopey I thought PEAR was a version of PHP anyway...

In the Spirit

This all happened last week, but after having my beak realigned I haven't had time to get my thoughts together. I use the word "thoughts" very loosely.

"Uh oh," said Dagmar, looking at the TV. "Dis isn't good."

"What isn't good?" I gurgled from the couch, staring at the ceiling. Earlier that day I'd had my deviated septum fixed. I'd been laying flat on my back on the couch ever since, counting the small cracks in the ceiling, trusting my beloved Viennese bride to take care of me. Every time I turned my head my nose started to bleed. I'd had a sneeze in the back of my head for an hour, but I was afraid to let it go...

"Dey say on the news that if you don't move your car out of the street they'll tow it avay," she said in that nifty accent of hers. "They vant to get the snowplows out tomorrow."

Wonderful. Our little white car has been stuck in a snowdrift on the street all winter. I'd managed to clear the snow away from it once a few weeks earlier and took the car around town to make sure the battery hadn't lost its charge, but as soon as I parked it the snowplows came and blocked it back in again... The car has been a headache for us lately -- someone had hit it, denting the door just bad enough that the door wouldn't open, and the front tire went flat. We could take the car downtown, but it often stalled on us. And now we gotta scoop the car out AGAIN, hope it starts, find a place to park it...

Dagmar looked at me. "Ve have to move the car or the City will tow it," she repeated. "This is bad news."

"Hunny, I'm not sure I can scoop the car out," I said. "The doctor told me not to lift anything or to walk much today."

"You're not doink anyting!" Dagmar said. "You can't sit up without bleeding all over yourself." She grabbed her boots. "I'm going to go look at it."

Two minutes later she was back in the house. "I think ve should just let the snowplow push the car away," she said. "There's no vay we can dig through dat much snow to get the car out, and the snow is way too icy for our neighbor's little snowblower." She sat down, pulling her gloves off. "How much do you think the towing charge would be?"

"Do you remember the last time we had a car towed," I said, holding a Kleenex brand facial tissue under my schnozz. "It was nearly three hundred dollars."

Dagmar turned teary eyes towards me. "Vhy does the city hate us? What are we going to do? We can't move the car, und we don't have any money to have it towed."

"Call Larry," I said. "He always seems to have the answers to these sorts of problems.

Our friend Larry is one of those people who, without fail, will cheerfully drop whatever he's doing to come and help anyone who needs help. He always has the right tool for the job, and he always has a smile and a funny story.

Ten minutes later, "Oh good! Larry says not to worry, he'll be over with his snowblower in de mornink!"

I looked up from the couch, grabbed another Kleenex brand facial tissue to hold under my nose, and gurgled, "But that snow's so icy and packed down from when the snowplows went around the car that I don't think a snowblower will work! I don't want him to break his snowblower!" Our neighbor lady has a little snowblower that we borrow occasionally. There's no way that snowblower would even make a dent in this pile.

"He says not to vorry," said Dagmar. And, well, when Larry tells you not to worry, he's usually right.

The next morning I was laying on the couch, a Kleenex brand facial tissue jammed in one nostril, when I heard a "bump," then a "thump" from outside, followed by what sounded like chains being drug across cement... I peeked gingerly out the window. There was Larry with the biggest dang snowblower I've ever seen.

My neighbor's snowblower has two wheels on the front. You kinda lift the back a little and push the machine through the snow. Larry's snowblower had tracks like a tank, an engine that looked like it belonged on something with the words "Mack" and "Truck" and "Diesel" on it. His snowblower could have run over my neighbor's snowblower, chewed it up and spit it out without pause. Larry had the machine in gear and was following along as it chewed its way through the ice and snow. His brother Gene was there, too, with another giant snowblower, working on the other end of the pile.

Within half an hour they were done -- the little white car was free of the snow! Dagmar hopped in and started it up. She put it in our garage and parked the good car behind it -- a smart move indeed; if she put the good car in the garage and parked the white car behind it there's a chance that the white car wouldn't start, thus blocking our only mode of transport in the garage... We thanked Larry and Gene, they told us a joke, waved goodbye, loaded their snowblowers and off they went.

"Phew!" said Dagmar as she pulled off her boots. "How fantastic vas that? I can't believe we have such good friends!"

"Yeah, we sure owe them!"

"But vhat are we going to do with the car? Do ve want to try to fix it?"

"Well, the last time it was in the shop, the mechanic asked me if I really wanted to put a sixty-dollar battery in a two-hundred dollar car. I'm not sure the car's worth fixing, and I don't have the tools, time, temperament or training to fix it myself." I paused to grab another Kleenex brand facial tissue.

"Should ve give it away?"

"That sounds good. Do we know anyone who needs a beat-up old car?"

"Call the guy who runs the Siouxland Sleep Out," Dagmar said. "Maybe one of the homeless shelters can use the car for something...?" I picked up the phone and made the call.

"No," I said, "He doesn't think they can use a car. How about calling the VA and seeing if there's a veteran who might need a car like this?" Dagmar picked up the phone and made a call.

Within five minutes our phone rang. Dagmar talked for a few minutes, then hung up and turned to me. "Dis is fantastic! That vas a guy who was a mechanic in the Army. Their family is struggling, und dey need a car!"

"Hey, if he was a mechanic, it's a perfect fit," I said. "The car is fundamentally sound, it just needs someone to work on it a little..."

The next day Dagmar went to the courthouse where she met the man who wanted the car. She paid for the license, registration and title transfer, then they came to get the car. A few minutes later and our little white car was backing out of the driveway, a happy family waving at us through the windows.

"I hope the car verks for them," Dagmar said. "I hope they aren't disappointed."

"What else can we do?" I asked. "We told him all the problems with the car, and we paid for all the transfer fees... If he can't get the car to run, he can always sell it for parts." I grabbed another Kleenex brand facial tissue to hold under my nose.

"I know. I just hope it works for them. I vant them to be happy."

That was about ten days ago. We periodically wonder how they're doing with the car and mentally wish the family well. We also periodically wonder just when the City is gonna come and plow our street -- it's untouched! We could have left our car parked under it's snowdrift this whole time... But it all worked out well. (Thanks to Larry and Gene!)

Things that make me grumpy

Sioux City has a law that you have to have your sidewalk shoveled 12 hours after the snow stops falling. If you don't, they'll come to your house and give you a ticket for a hundred bucks or so. This is okay (though I wish they'd extend the 12 hour law to 24 hours, we have a lot of elderly and disabled people in our neighborhood who have trouble finding someone to shovel their walks so quickly) -- I understand the wisdom behind the law, and I agree with it.

But I do have a problem.

Why does the city only enforce this rule on private citizens? The city doesn't shovel it's own sidewalks, nor do many businesses in our neighborhood, and they don't get in any trouble...

It's really a pain in the tuckus. Our neighborhood is old, and many abandoned houses have been condemned and torn down by the city -- on some streets this has happened to every third house. In fact I know one block where there's only one house left standing. I'm under the impression that if the city takes the responsibility to condemn and destroy the houses, they also take the responsibility to maintain the property until they can sell it. Yet they don't mow in the summer, nor do they shovel in the winter. This makes it nearly impossible to walk in our neighborhood -- and we have (again) many elderly and handicapped folk, and it's a poor neighborhood, which means that you have grandmothers trying to climb over unplowed snowdrifts to get to the local gas station to buy a loaf of bread...

Even if the city isn't responsible for maintaining these properties, isn't it responsible for shoveling the sidewalks in the parks? Or HAVING sidewalks in the parks? When I bought my house I was told that I had to replace my front sidewalk, and that it was city code that all properties must have a "functional" sidewalk. Except, evidently, for the parkland the city owns across the street over there, and the other park up the road -- not a sidewalk in sight. You have to trudge through the snow and mud, or walk in the street.

Grrrrr...

Maybe some of the "Public Works" funding President Obama is proposing could go towards maintaining this sort of thing. Give the city some money to buy a small fleet of snowblowers, hire teenagers or whomever could use a couple bucks to go out and take care of this... It helps the neighborhood, gives a little income to people who want to work -- a win/win situation. The broken window theory comes into play here, too.

Here's the "sidewalk" on one of the abandoned lots in my neighborhood.

This is the sidewalk in front of one of the strip malls on Hamilton Boulevard.

The sidewalk in a park in Sioux City.

Adopt an Executive

2009-01-02T07:10:00.001-06:00

Well THAT was interesting...

2008-12-26T18:40:00.004-06:00

I'd like to thank everyone for all the good thoughts whilst I've been on the mend!

Last Monday I had my septum fixed. Wasn't too bad... The worst part of it was getting the IV hooked up, actually. When I came out of recovery I felt kinda bruised and battered, but not bad.

The next few days weren't all that bad, either. I had what felt like a bad sinus headache, and my face was pretty tender -- both side-effects of the plastic stents they'd sewn into my honker. (I've been spelling 'em "stints" this whole time, but I was wrong. Go figger.) I could sit up and act human for an hour or two at a shot, but I spent most of my time laying on the couch gurgling.

By Wednesday night I could see a pattern, though. Every day I was getting more clogged up, more miserable, more swollen, more tender... It wasn't getting better -- it was getting worse! I was really struggling to breathe, constantly gasping for air, could barely move for fear of upsetting my nose. I couldn't blow my nose 'cause of the stents, nor could I sniff. Finally, somewhere in there Wednesday night or Thursday morning the dam broke, finally, and my sinuses cleared.

And immediately started filling up again.

But I got a good half-day of relief anyway, which was welcomed! Thursday evening I slept for three hours straight -- a record!

Today (Friday) I spent most of the day fretting and dreading my visit to the doctor to get the plastic stents removed. My nose was terribly tender, and my headache something fierce. It seemed like each day the misery added to the previous total. The last thing I wanted was for someone to dig around in my schnozz to tear stitches out, then pull chunks of plastic out of my head. But MAN was I looking forward to it. It seemed like every time the second hand hit the :15 and :45 mark I was dreading having the procedure done, but every time it swept past the :00 and :30 mark I was looking forward to it... Needless to say, I thought about it a LOT today.

The appointed time finally arrived. I'll not go into how the removal went (that's another post altogether), but I was surprised at the size of the stents. I'd assumed they were about the size and shape of a .22 caliber cartridge -- a simple plastic tube. I wasn't ready to see a 3-1/2" by 3/4" (I'm guessing) sheet of plastic with a small tube running along one edge... No wonder I had a headache!

One thing I did learn today is that while you often have the choice of screaming or not screaming, you seldom have a choice in HOW you scream. Turns out I scream like a little girl. I also learned that if the doctor takes you into a room with a suspiciously thick, possibly soundproof door, there's usually a reason.

But within two minutes the pain was gone.

By the time we got home my week-long sinus headache was a thing of the past. I could walk and talk and BREATHE like a real-live human bean again! I ate dinner and tasted it!

I'm still awfully tender -- feels kinda like I've been whacked in the face with a board -- but the swelling's gone down almost entirely already and I feel SO much better! I'm confident that I won't need that last pain pill, and I'm sure that by the end of the weekend the "bruised" and "raw" feelings will be fading...

Dagmar has been WONDERFUL through this whole thing. She was always there when I needed her, and really did take good care of me! She's a peach!

As requested: Beak Update

2008-12-24T14:32:00.002-06:00

Hello friends!

Well, the surgery went well, mostly. They said my problem was more intricate than they had anticipated, so I was in surgery longer than they wanted. I guess they actually use liquid cocaine in nasal operations to keep the swelling down and whatnot... Unfortunately that spiked my blood pressure to 240 over 210, so they had to keep me in recovery for three hours rather than the usual 20 minutes.

That was all on Monday. Since then I've been home, trying to stagger through the days until Friday when they take the stints out of my nose. They had to sew these big plastic things inside my nose to help shape the cartilage as my nose heals.

It looks and feels exactly like I snorted a ping-pong ball halfway up my beak.

Between the ping-pong ball, blood clots and regular ol' mucus, I can't breathe at all through my nose. I've got a constant headache from the pressure the stints put on the nerves in my face, and I feel like I've got the worst head cold of my life. The stitches itch; it's hard for me not to pick at 'em. I'm all clogged up but blowing my nose isn't productive -- it just makes a pretty whistling sound from the plastic stints. "Nasal irrigation" isn't working much, either. I'm simply too clogged up for that to even make the slightest difference.

But, all that is expected -- they told me that I'd be pretty miserable this week. They also told me that when I get the stints out Friday I'll feel instantly better and will be mucho happy (though the swelling might not go down for another week after that). So I'm just kinda trying to get from minute to minute until then.

The worst part is not being able to sleep. Every time I doze off I wake up gasping for breath -- which is exactly what I had the operation to stop in the first place! But that'll go away along with the stints.

Breathing Easier?

2008-12-21T17:37:00.002-06:00

I gotta be at the hospital tomorrow at 8:30 a.m. for my nose surgery. I'm a little nervous.

It's just a 20-minute deal, I'll be home by early afternoon, but I hate not knowing what to expect. I'm also dreading having to do the usual "no food or water after midnight," and having plastic stints sewn into my nose for the rest of the week...

But it's gotta be done. Doc says when I sleep I'm only getting 60% of the oxygen to my brain that I need -- which is why I don't sleep much more than a few hours a night.

Tomorrow will be an interesting day.

Und ve dance

2008-12-20T12:58:00.004-06:00

"Vhat do we do?" my Alpine Snickerdoodle Dagmar asked yesterday morning. "Everyone else is closed but where I verk. I have to get to my job this morning."

I'm not very polite at 6 a.m., no matter how long I've already been awake. But I can't be rude (at least not intentionally) to my beloved bride, so I stomped instead.

"What do you want ME to do?" stomp stomp stomp. "I suppose you want ME to go out there and shovel?" stomp stomp stomp.

"No, no," she replied, "I'll do it." (This is where I should have recognized sarchasm.* I rarely do.) "You just go back to sleep." (That time I got it. Sarcasm.)

I reached for my brand new long underpants. These days I wear long johns under my pajama bottoms, with blue jeans over both. "Hush, you. I'll get it. Just give me a minute..."

Five minutes later I was outside, standing knee-deep in snow on my sidewalk. I looked at the sidewalk. I looked at my shovel. I looked at the driveway. Deeper there, with a nice drift. I looked at my shovel. I paused for thought, idly tracing a picture of a palm tree in the snow with my finger. I walked out to the street -- they hadn't plowed yet. The snow was nearly two feet deep over most of the street, though not quite so deep up at the corner... I could see truck tracks in the snow in the street of the "main road" half a block away, but I could also see where the truck had gotten stuck. I went back inside.

"Honey, I don't think you're gonna drive anywhere this morning." I pulled off my gloves, hat, face mask, coat, sweatshirt, and jeans, putting them up where they could drop on a towel as the ice melted. "Why don't you take a vacation day?"

"I can't," she said. "I only have two vacation days built up and I'm going to use them vhen you have your nose surgery Monday."

"Well, you're not going to drive to work today, that's for sure..."

"Vell, then, I valk."

"Stubborn mule."

"Nyah."

Half an hour later I'd put my jeans, sweatshirt, coat, hat, gloves and face mask back on. The dog had her little pink coat on and was all harnessed and leashed and ready to go. The vunderful vife was so bundled up all I could see was the tip of a nose and two big green eyes. "You're sure about this?" I asked. "It's cold out there."

"Yeah, I'm sure. Let's go."

Outside went we, and down the street. "I see vhat you mean," Dagmar said. "There's no way I could drive in dis." The closest main road wasn't plowed yet. We went another couple blocks to the "main drag." It had been plowed, but no one had scooped their walks yet, and the traffic was too bad to continue walking in the road. "Vhy don't you two go back home?" Dagmar asked. "It's nice dat you vant to walk me to work, but I'll be fine. It's just another ten blocks or so."

"No," I said, "I want to go at least halfway." We crossed the street and headed eastward. Zoey-dog led the way, wearing her pretty pink coat, picking out the easiest route for us. I followed, wearing my black leather jacket. Dagmar brought up the rear.

We trudged. Then we trudged some more. And yet a little more after that. We finally got to where we could see Dagmar's workplace. "Now you turn around," she told me. "Take Zozo-hund and go home." I tried to kiss her on the nose, missed by two feet, and turned to go.

On the way home I made mental notes on which stores and shops had failed to scoop their sidewalks, forcing us to trudge through 10-inch snow on their sidewalks. I shall never buy anything from them, EVER. If anyone wants a list, I'll send it to you.

After about twenty minutes (or hours, I'm not sure) Zoey and I finally made it past the main drag and were close to home. One of my neighbors, someone I'd never met, was stuck in their driveway. I waddled over to help push. I tied Zoey to a pole and put my shoulder into pushing the car, but it wasn't going anywhere. We tried rocking the car back and forth to get it out of the rut, but no dice. After a few minutes the man came to me, "Gracias," he said. "I call my brother Jorgé. He come, take me to the plant." I smiled at him, collected my pink dog, and headed homeward.

Shaking the snow off my boots, I let the dog in the house and took her coat off. She made a beeline for her food and water. Me? I sat for a minute, then went back outside. My across-the-street neighbor had told me I could use her snow blower "anytime you need it," so I decided to take her up on the offer. I knocked on the door and was met by her grandson, who got the key to the snow blower for me and told me where it was.

I got the machine out of their garage, got it started and proceeded to start clearing their sidewalk off for them -- they're letting me borrow their snow blower, after all. As I got to the end of their sidewalk I saw the other neighbor was struggling with his shovel, trying to get his car out.

What do I do? I want to help, but it's not my snow blower, and it's not my gas. Hmmm... I have ten bucks, I'll just leave that on the snow blower when I return it. Okay...

I get the other neighbor's attention, the one who was struggling with his driveway. I know he understands English, for the most part, but he doesn't speak it well, so I didn't try to start a conversation, opting to mime instead. "You want maybe I should use this here snowmachine to dig your sidewalk and driveway out?" I said with one hand. He nodded, which means "Yes" in Vietnamese. So I got to work.

I cleared off his driveway, then a couple passes on what I thought was his sidewalk and I was done. Across the street I went. Might as well do the OTHER neighbor's walk and drive while I'm at it -- he did, after all, try to fix my car the other day. (Car's still busted -- won't start now. But the neighbor guy fixed my flat tire and de-dented my dinged door.) Back and forth and forth and back I went with the snow blower. After about an hour I was finished.

As I was dragging the snow blower back to put it in the neighbor's garage, I noticed that when I cleared the Vietnamese neighbor's sidewalk, I had missed his sidewalk by about ten feet. I'd cleared a rather snaky path right through the middle of his yard...

When I had the snow blower put away, I heard the familiar whine of a stuck car at the end of the street. The Vietnamese man's wife and sister-in-law were stuck. I went up the street and helped push them out. Once they were on their way I turned up the street to go home, only to see the neighbor lady standing on her sidewalk. "I ain't takin' this ten dollars. Now you just take this back, or I'll stand out her arguing long enough that you'll have to spend the damned ten dollars on a get-well card for me when I have pneumonia... Now you just use that snowblower any time you need it and don't be trying to give me any money!" So I took the ten dollars back. (Dagmar took them a $15 gift certificate to the local pizza place later that day.)

I finally got back inside and took my coat 'n stuff off by about noon, a little earlier. The rest of the day was spent in a rush to try to get nine hours of work done in four and a half hours. (Strangely, the first e-mail I read when I got to my computer was from someone saying how they loved winter. I choked back a little bile and ignored it. They live in the south.)

About 4:10 in the afternoon I got dressed again to go pick Dagmar up from work. The streets should be clear by now, and the driveway's clear thanks to the neighbor's snow blower... I went outside. Cool -- the city hadn't plowed our street yet, but enough traffic had gone through that I was confident I could get out. I went to the garage and started the car. As I was backing out, the snowplow came by, clearing the street. Unfortunately, when they clear the street, it's usually done by the expedient of pushing all the snow into my driveway -- and sure enough, that's what they did this time.

Now I'm back out with a shovel again...

But, you know, all the time I spent clearing snow gave me time to ponder, to philosophize a little. I wondered why, when my forefathers came to America, did they choose Iowa to settle...? The proverbial covered wagon must have been going through Iowa in that one week in June where the weather's nice. I also wondered why Iowa's one of the few places in the world where it's not considered strange to wear your wife's underwear. If you do, people just assume it's because YOUR long underwear is in the wash...

This morning I woke up to blizzard warnings on TV. Dagmar and I spent another half an hour scooping out the sidewalk and driveway earlier today, only to have the snowplow come by just as we finished, rendering all our work useless. Half an hour's work doesn't sound like much, but when it's below zero and the wind chill is between -20 and -25 degrees, ANY work is difficult and taxes your system.

Dagmar's happily wrapped up in blankies alternating between TV, napping, and meditation. I'm trying to get a little work done, blogging a little, and enjoying the rum in my tummy-tum-tum. The world can keep on blizzarding out there. We're taking the rest of the day off.

*"Sarchasm (n.): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit, and the person (usually me) who doesn't get it.

Slow Friday

2008-12-12T16:56:00.003-06:00

The Good

I went out to walk the dog yesterday afternoon. The neighbor guy was out in front of his house trying to beat the ice off his sidewalk with an old ice chipper. We stopped and chatted for a bit.

"Hey, where's that little red car of yours?" I asked him.

"Oh, it's parked behind my friend's house," he said. "It's gonna take some work to get it to run and I didn't want to leave it sitting in the street all winter getting in the snowplow's way." At this point it felt natural for both of us to look over at the little white car parked in front of my house, buried in snow.

"Yeah, I gotta do something with that car too," I said.

"What's wrong with it?" asked my neighbor, leaning on his ice chipper.

"Aah, the front tire's flat," I said. "And someone ran into it again so I can't get the driver's side door open. I just don't have the tools to mess with it. I'll probably crawl in through the other side and drive it to the gas station tomorrow to put air in the tire. Hopefully it won't ruin the rim."

My neighbor nodded, we talked for a bit about the weather (above freezing! Yay!) and life in general, then I continued on to walk the dog.

Half an hour later when I came around the corner on my way home, Zoey-dog proudly leading the way, I saw my neighbor walking away from my car. I caught up with him.

"Oh," he said, turning to me, "I blew up your tire for you, and I bent the dent out with a crowbar. The door opens fine now... If you ever have a tire go flat I have an air tank in the shed..."

What a nice thing! Without having the right tools I had resigned myself to spending an entire afternoon prying at the door with a phillips screwdriver to get in so I could drive the car to the gas station to get air in the tire -- possibly ruining the rim. I was thinking of putting the spare on, but the jack handle is missing and it's way too icy to feel comfortable jacking a car up... I'm thankful that my tire was merely low and not slashed as I had originally thought, and I'm VERY grateful to the neighbor for helping out!

The Bad

I found out today one of my first and best customers is thinking of canceling his web site. "I just don't know if I'm getting enough traffic to keep spending money on it. I mean, the site looks terrific, but if no one's looking at it, why bother changing it every week...?"

When I designed the site I tried to install Google Analytics in the code to track the stats, but for some reason it didn't work. I fumbled around with it for a while and never got it to give me any statistics... Meanwhile my customer keeps getting an e-mail every week from the tracking utility his old designer had installed, which is quite naturally telling him that he has zero web activity -- when I moved the site to a different server it nullified the old tracking software. So my customer has for the last six months believed that no one at all is looking at his site.

So I reinstalled Google Analytics on it today. Hopefully I'll get some meaningful stats on the site before he decides to pull the plug. I went so far as to put some other freebie tracking software on the index page, just to see if that works. (From that it looks like he's getting ten or fifteen different visitors per hour.)

I've never paid much attention to web stats. I always figure a business should have a web site, and as a designer I should put the best site up I can. Send the link out to the search engines and be done with it... But I guess from my customer's point of view it makes sense to want specifics. "I don't know if I should increase my radio advertising and cut the web site; if people are looking at the site, then it's worth having. But how do I know?"

The Fun

Last Saturday one of my volunteer groups got to give away all the goodies we'd collected over the year. That's the fun part of the deal!

The Independent Riders for Children and Charities holds a Toy Run every August. We have a group ride around the area, some sandwiches and door prizes at the end of the ride -- all for the low, low price of a new toy for a child and a couple bucks. Then in December we take the toys to the local Head Start and give the toys to the people there. We don't actually give the toys to the children, though -- the Head Start gives the toys to the parents. That way the parents can give their children a toy for Christmas.

The group also holds a fundraiser in the winter, the Leather 'n Lace Dance. This year we were able to donate several thousand dollars to local children's charities in addition to all the toys... You can see more about the group (and a whole bunch of photos on the photo page) HERE.

The Confusing

There are parts of our governmental system I just don't unnerstand.

There are 70 registered lobbyists on Capitol Hill for every one of our representatives. The car companies spent $50 million on lobbyists -- a fantastic investment as they're probably gonna get some $34 billion back. The oil companies spent $33 million in 2005 lobbying to get favorable legislation, and the oil lobby spent more than $100 million on a campaign this past year.

Think writing a letter to your congressman will get your point across? I doubt it. Not when he has 70 people who are paid to do nothing but foist their programs on him and various industries are spending tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to get THEIR point across...

We have gone from a government of the people, by the people, and for the people to a government run by lobbyists and special interest groups. My voice is not being heard in the torrent.

Lobbyists say that what they're doing falls under free speech. "How do the congressmen know how our industries feel unless we inform them?" Well, that's a good point. Lobbyists do provide information to our government. But it's out of hand... Well out of hand.

What can we do about it? Simple. Ban lobbying and paid lobbyists. I have no doubt that big industry will immediately find a way to get their points across to our representatives, but shouldn't we do SOMETHING to let them know that we're not happy with the situation, that OUR voices are not being heard, that WE are the ones who hold our representatives accountable...?

Oddz 'n Endz

2008-12-10T12:11:00.002-06:00

A Bad Start

Dagmar and I have two cars. One works, so Dagmar uses it to get back and forth to work. The other... well... The other car is the car that stays home in case I absolutely NEED to get somewhere. It's an old beat-up Ford of some kind. Heater doesn't work, it often stalls in traffic, it shakes a lot, no rear-view mirror, brake lights work on odd days... But it's the only transportation I have in the winter. (During the summer I ride my bicycle or take the motorcycle.)

Anyway, it's buried under a pile of snow thanks to the snowplow driver who, well, who did his job and cleared the street after the storm the other day. I went out to try to start the car to move yesterday, only to find that my front driver's side tire was flat. Just like the neighbor's front driver's side tire, and the other neighbor's front driver's side tire... AND someone had run into my car as it was parked in front of my house, leaving a dent just big enough that I can't get the driver's side door open.

So there the car sits until I have the time/energy to deal with it.

That smarts.

Stupid dog.

The last couple days have been an icy mess. It rained for about an hour Monday, then the temperature dropped a bit and it froze into a nice sheet of ice. Then it snowed on top of it. You know how it is. It makes walking the dog an adventure.

She's pulled me down three times in the last two days.

Here I'm walking along all bundled up and happy when the dog sees a squirrel or a shadow or something sparkly in the snow and bolts, which results in a bundled up hippie pirouetting around in little circles, arms windmilling frantically...

Stupid dog.

And it hurts, falling on your keester. Even though I've been wearing two or three layers of everything for weeks now (you know you live in Iowa when you wear your wife's underwear -- not because it's fun, but because YOUR longjohns are in the wash), but it still hurts when tuckus meets concrete.

Class Warfare in Sioux City

A couple houses in the Northside got tagged with graffiti the other day. It was on the news. The building down the street here on the Westside gets tagged nearly weekly, the bike paths a block away are constantly tagged, the building across the street gets it about twice a year, many of the traffic signs in my neighborhood are spay-painted over, and no one says a thing. But when the rich people get vandalized, THEN it's in the news and the police are all scampering about...

Here's my neighborhood:

Sure be nice if the city would pay more attention to our part of town. Dagmar carries a cattle prod with her when she walks the dog. Shouldn't be that way -- we're in Iowa for cripe's sake.

Yet more woes...

My Mac has locked up on me twice this morning and shut down on me once. I really, really need more RAM. It's hard to work when the computer's not cooperating. (Macs are wonderful machines, but I bought it to do web design and photography work. It handled that perfectly well. But now I'm doing some video editing and more high-end stuff, and, well, I didn't buy enough RAM.)

New Look

2008-12-10T07:21:00.002-06:00

Aw, what the heck. I'll ditch the odd conglomeration of strangeness I've been using as a blog for the past three or four years and start another odd conglomeration of strangeness.

I'll be tweaking the look for days, I'm sure.

Eventually I may even get back to writing again.

Monday

2008-12-08T11:00:00.002-06:00

Mumbai

This is probably the best assessment I've heard of the Mumbai attacks yet...

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Mumbai Tragedy

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Random Miscelltoes

2008-12-04T12:06:00.002-06:00

Freeform Verse:

Seen through the green haze of NyQuill
the world is a confused, confusing mash.
Vapor rises off mint tea, fingers thick
fumble the spoon. Soon to bed. Soon.

If I Get a Tattoo

I'm thinking of getting a literary tattoo, should I decide to ad art to my sagging carcass. "Live with Morality," maybe, or "Do What's Right, Not What's Easy." The first has fewer letters and probably wouldn't hurt as much.

Maybe I should get my ear pierced first or something, just to see how I react to needles.

I have a buddy who had his band's logo tattooed on his arm. Then he got a job in Houston and moved away... I wonder if his musical replacement got the same tattoo. Probably not.

Icky Icky Icky

I found out yesterday that I gotta have an operation on my schnozz. Turns out my beak's bent on the inside. My septum is a deviant. So they're gonna straighten things out in a few weeks.

The doc peeked at my file. "Oh, you had a sleep study done a while back. Why did you do that?"

"Because I can't sleep." (You'd think the doctor would be able to figure THAT out on his own.)

"It says here that you don't have sleep apnea or anything, but you're only getting 60% of the oxygen your brain needs. That's not good." The doctor paused to look at me. "How do you feel?"

"Stupid, for the most part," I answered.

"I can understand."

The doctor says he can fix my proboscis, and there's a good chance that'll fix my sleeping problem. He said he didn't know if he could fix my stupid, though.

During part of the exam the doctor got out a hose and shoved it up my nose. That hurt. And I mean he didn't just, you know, peek politely in my nose -- he jammed the tube at last eight inches into my head. "Oh, I see you had your tonsils out."

I just hope the operation doesn't keep me from working. And I hope I have work to do.