The River Green

The story takes place in a mythical Viking world where a young Viking teenager named Hiccup aspires to follow his tribe's tradition of becoming a dragon slayer. After finally capturing his first dragon, and with his chance at finally gaining the tribe's acceptance, he finds that he no longer has the desire to kill it and instead befriends it.

At first glance, the movie is concerning because it threatens to produce a generation of children who grow up with the impression that the Vikings are Scottish. They are not. Neither are the children of Vikings American. Why movies lack the ability to produce characters whose accents accurately portray the setting of the story is quite frankly perplexing. The Hibernian Island has a rich history of Viking settlements, whose decedents are part of the present population of Ireland. Scotland has a history of repelling most Viking raids. There is far more evidence that the Vikings fought dragons in Wales or Ireland than in Scotland. With that in mind, it is surprising that well-known Scotsmen would lend their talents to a project re-writes their history at best, slanders it at worst.

Having said that, the rest of the movie is absolutely great. It’s sometimes hard to tell what the motivating factors of the protagonist to change the centuries-old lifestyle of his Viking culture is. It seems that it might be his less than Viking stature and habitual clumsiness that make him an outcast from the rest of his people. A self-fulfilling prophecy could have contributed to his already outcast nature- thus paving the way for his eventual challenge to the status quo.

This might be a bit of a harsh treatment for an animated fantasy. It was cute. The dragons are awesome and the animation is outstanding. The story, I think, says a lot about following one’s conscience rather than blindly following a culture that ultimately undermines that conscience.

It was a good movie. I’m just long winded, and perhaps a bit droning.

Labels: movies

…was Christmas Day. I got everything I wanted without realizing it.

For the six weeks, we have been cleaning, moving, fixing, repairing, putting away, stacking, preparing, working, studying and hoping that everything would work out in the end. My goal was to finish what was the hardest term I have had to date in school. My last day was the Tuesday before Christmas. Midterms were right around Thanksgiving. We had a good Black Friday this year- we slept in a bit and spent the entire day watching college football. There were about six games in total. Christmas was a planned day of laziness.

The most outstanding reason for having our dinner on Christmas Eve was due to BBC America’s decision to broadcast- for the first time ever- the Doctor Who Christmas Special on Christmas. It was due to come on at 9pm sharp. Our dinners rarely end before 2am, so watching the special would have otherwise have been impossible. When we discovered that the 14 hours preceding the special would be filled with a Doctor Who marathon, we were pretty dead set on parking ourselves on the sofa and doing very little.

Doctor Who at the Proms was on for two hours, beginning at around 1pm. During that time, both Marieke and I drifted in and out of a state of sleep so restful and taken in such a comfortable environment, it was difficult to tell at times that it was all happening on the sofa. We had reserved a few movies from RedBox to watch on that day, mirroring our activity one year previous. When it was decided that we would savor our nest for the entire day, we both changed into even more comfortable clothes. Marieke found a particularly comfortable pair of ‘in-active’ bottoms (as opposed to the active bottoms I use during workout time)- plaid, soft, made of t-shirt material and oh-so perfect for lounging. I spent most of the rest of the day in these pants.

After the amazing and exceedingly good Doctor Who Christmas Special episode, we capped the evening off with about half the episodes from the sixth season of Weeds. This also mirrored the activities of last year. Having the laptop made watching the episodes quite simple and it was far easier to set up and watch.

It was truly a day of relaxation. Well deserved relaxation. We all need a day off- I was lucky to get two. For second Christmas (12/26)- a happily adopted Dutch tradition- we began the day by having brunch with a friend, whose New Year will begin with a deployment to Iraq. We did some shopping, taking just enough time outside our nest to avoid cabin fever. We did watch our movies and the rest of the sixth season of Weeds.

In a word, the last two days have been simply bliss. I do not want to let them go.

Labels: holidays

The last time I saw Dawn Zuckerman, Marieke and I were shopping at Wal-Mart for our new apartment (Wendover pl.) and Dawn was shopping at Wal-Mart for her stint in the Peace Corps. The very next time I saw her, it was just under 10 years later at the Starbucks on Murray Ave. Another successful reunification courtesy of Facebook.

True to expectation, she is saving the world, one refugee at a time.

We had so much in common, it was hard to tell where one of us began and the other ended. While drinking coffee and eating our lunch, it was as if no time had passed at all.

After helping me with mailing my Christmas cards, we parted with a date for lunch on the following Monday. It was nice to remember what it felt like to be 22 years old again. Few things are comparable.

Labels: friends

When this whole school thing began, I had such a clear picture of what I wanted to get out of it and what I was doing it for and what the end looked like. So much has happened since then. Almost everything in my life is different than the first day I started and almost nothing in my life is the same from 18 months ago. So much is different. So little is the same. I’ve lost so much and gained so much and I don’t know if I like what I have now or what I had then. It is almost impossible to fathom that I would ever have a chance at that life again… it was so fleeting and so finite- and I knew it would be- but maybe I didn’t want it to end, so I just kind of ignored how short it was going to be.

In this new version of what purports to be my life, I do have a small chance of something, but it is only a glimmer- an ember, barely able to hold on to its light. It is not the glowing bastion of hope and promise it first appeared.

My classes are about to end for the term, and then a very much needed two week break. Once again, the end of my contract is coming upon the end of my term and I have so much work to do for both. Yet all I can seem to do is sleep and play computer games. Or sit on the sofa and watch tv. Everything but, in other words. My focus is way off from where it needs to be and I hope I can look back on this and realize that it was all just the malaise before the storm.

I surprised myself by getting my Java project done, despite the heralding of doom by the instructor that it was the hardest assignment in the entire class. There was only a slight oversight on my part, but it was easily fixed and now all that is left is comments.

Oh… and Shannon is having her baby as I write this.

Labels: afflictions , classes

The day is upon us. Time for turkey, mashed potatoes, friends, family, beer and Marieke’s sweet potato oranges. Unlike last year, we are hosting this time around and are welcoming eight people to our ginormous table.

Part of the reason we opted out of hosting last year was because we didn’t have the energy to clean. Having to spend most of our physical and emotional strength dealing with our friend’s accident meant that we just could not hack hosting. The decision did not go over well with our normal crew- one person in particular responded to our decision with static. I did expect a little more understanding, but I knew it was just expecting too much.

Our day began with some coffee and planning. My first task was to make room in the former Gecko room, for all the stuff that doesn’t belong where we plan to eat dinner and socialize. Marieke’s first task was cleaning the bathroom. An hour later, we seriously considered cancelling. Aunt Flo paid us a three-day-early visit, so that wrenched up the whole works.

It is a mystery to me, how, in under twelve hours, the house looks like a palace- granted a small palace. Maybe a gnome palace, but a palace nonetheless. Speaking of Kabouters (Dutch for gnomes), the vacuum we had to borrow from mom was made for use in only the residents of gnomes. This is the only possible conclusion to draw, given the ridiculous angle one must stand in order to operate it. My mother is what I would call average in height for a woman in her demographic. Marieke and I are what I would call above average in height. I can see over everyone’s head on the bus and in crowds, I tend to be the first to know when it starts to rain. So maybe it’s a matter of perspective.

In digression, I’ll say this: the turkey looks quite defrosted, having spent the last five days sitting in the fridge. Our prep work for tomorrow- food wise- seems like it will be smooth sailing, since we have a CuisinArt hand-me-down that slices carrots faster than the speed of lightning and chops onions like nobody’s business. I’m sad to see our ‘manual’ chopper go, but I won’t miss nursing the wounds suffered to my knuckles from the mandolin slicer that it doubled as. Also gone will be the nearly ninety minutes of slicing four pounds of carrots. It’s a tradeoff, but those things were invented for a reason. Now I can sleep in.

My cousin, David, shared a quote from Melody Beattie that I thought appropriate:

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.
Melody Beattie

Have a good Thanksgiving.

Labels: family , friends , holidays , house , Thanksgiving

When Marieke came home, I was in the middle of the annual ritual of evacuating the water from the hose and winding it into its little house for the winter. Of course, this also includes cleaning the area of the outside where the hose usually sits during the warmer months- along the side of the house, precisely forming a line from the front of the house, where the water spout is, to the back of the house, where it is needed and used most often. Over the course of the warmer months, the area becomes overgrown, spider ridden and otherwise swarmed upon by whatever other examples of life exist along the side of the house.

This year, it was far more complicated since the two-paned crank window decided that we only need one pane of glass during winter and broke. Not completely, but enough to leave room for a steady breeze. Having cranked the window closed, substituting a paper bag for actual insulation, but not delusion of insulation, my task was complete.

While washing my hands of residue that my twisted mind thought of as ‘Summer’s Corpse,’ Marieke said, “I have a thought about dinner…”

To which I replied, “Yeah, I’m hungry for Hough’s too.”

“I wasn’t thinking Hough’s, I was thinking Eat & Park because we have to go to Target.”

“Oh. Ok,” I offered, somewhat dejectedly.

“We’ll have plenty of beer for Thanksgiving,” I sometimes wonder if she harbors a deep-seeded fear that I’ll become an alkie. After eleven years together, I would hope that she knows the answer already.

Mom and her friend, Joe, were pitching in for a case of beer. Our choice. We picked a “Variety of Victory,” one of our favorites.

I supposed I could wait. My inner frat boy grumbled at not being gratified instantly.

Labels: Hough's

I’m not sure how I feel about not having posted a weird, random event in a while. They happened more before we quit smoking. What’s that about?

Having put the porch in proper winter order, we weren’t too concerned with the warning of excessive wind by the 11:00 news.

At 2:34am, I was startled awake by a terrible noise that could only have resulted from a dumpster falling down the steps. I imagined one of the dumpsters in the alley behind the house shaking free of its moorings, only to have plummeted into the shed in the back, which was now at the bottom of the hill in the back yard, pressing against the dining room wall.

The cat was sure we were being invaded, so under the bed he went. Since the dogs didn't seem at all impressed and Marieke was snoozing away, I guessed that it was a dream and Manfred was only disturbed by my reaction. Upon roaming the house, clad only in my skivvies, brandishing a plumbing wrench and flashlight, I found nothing amiss.

Since the front porch is so wide, I was not able to see the front steps from the front door.

The sidewalk, which is where one end of the gutter is resting in the picture, is about 30 or so feet below the porch. The porch is on the first floor, the bedroom is on the second floor. It was hanging above our second floor bedroom windows.

We estimate that it must have fallen about 60 feet. At 2:34 in the morning, I in my drawers, going from window to window in search of the mysterious noise. What a sight that must have been from across the way.

This is the same gutter that came loose during the snow storm last winter. We managed to control that situation by tying string to it and anchoring it to the roof until our capricious landlord remedied the issue. It seems to have suffered some buckling upon landing, so perhaps it is beyond repair at this point.

At any rate, another weird, random event goes into the books.

Labels: house , random events

Even though I’m having a crisis of mammoth proportions in school and I’m behind on e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g, I’ve come into some really awesome music by way of iTunes radio. This website provides the best continuous music heard in quite some time: http://laut.fm/alternativeworld. I’m listening to Phoenix now, but I’ve been introduced to Troy von Balthazar, The Temper Trap, The Twilight Sad, Marquis of Vaudeville- a small sample of the playlist I’m gathering.

And thank goodness… I was starting to dream in Bach and one morning woke up singing Whip It. not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just that something new was definitely needed.

Neil is coming in today to get the geckos and take them to Norfolk. I’m gonna miss the little guys. Think he’s only staying the night. Luckily, we are pounding out the ‘get ready to have people over for Thanksgiving’ cleaning list, so his room is clean(er). We got the porch done last night and Marieke washed the sofa cover so that there is a spot to sit.

I’m falling ever behind and I don’t see any clear sky ahead- at least not before Christmas- which is 43 days away. Fingers crossed, I guess.

Labels: family , house

Wednesday has become a normal laundry day because the laundromat is usually free of bizarre people, which means it is empty. Our week is literally planned around this Wednesday evening ritual. Marieke even finished work early so that we could get the extra stuff done like sheets and towels. Upon arrival our hopes for a peaceful, uneventful laundry experience were quickly laid to waste as we noticed what we like to call ‘Greenfield’s only trailer trash',’ or West Virginia’s ambassadors to Greenfield. Pick which one is more offensive and go with that.

Upon the four seats closest the only door sat a gender-obscured person who we had come to know from when she was employed at Giant Eagle and who used to make regular appearances parading up and down our own street with more than one stroller. The products of whatever union- presumably drug induced- now numbered five and have all been relegated, thanks to the actions, or lack thereof, to evil child land despite not having direct culpability themselves. The Giant Eagle girl had a laptop which appeared to be the only thing she cared about since the two older boys had strewn across the entry area, numerous Matchbox cars. With wheels. By the door. Not just by the door, right there as soon as you walk in, there the cars were. Then there were a series of girls who couldn’t have been more in the way of accessing the facility had they been laying outside the door. The mother figure was not unfamiliar to us, but still startling in her looks and severe absence of any ‘motherly’ behavior or other skills relating to being a parent. It was truly shocking. It shocks us each time we witness the general concern for the well being of the children that just is not there with either the mother figure of the Giant Eagle girl.

Our load consisted of around ten-thousand pounds of washables. Being the strongest, I am usually in charge of bringing in the baskets. So I went about this task, hoping that the initial shock of seeing someone else enter what was clearly the territory of the un-behaved, discipline deprived, parental neglect that was the five children, would introduce a kind of limited interaction with these people. That was not to be. On my second trip across the threshold of the establishment, I was met with a clothes cart being shoved into my face by the youngest child- a girl whose diaper was in desperate need of attention. The mother person wasn’t in sight and all Giant Eagle girl could muster was a half-hearted ‘oh sorry,’ followed by a chuckle. My interaction with obnoxious, unruly, poorly supervised children in the element of the adult world is well known. Just ask the little brat I knocked down with my knees at Golden Corral because he couldn’t make up his mind which direction he wanted to go next. Or the ankle biter whose head came into abrupt contact with my elbow at Target. His problems were made all the worse by the fact that he couldn’t find his mommy, even though she was screaming his name just two aisles over. The girl with the clothes cart got off easy. The cart only bounced off my arm enough to send her to her poppy butt with a slight but unmistakable squish.

From one end of that place to the other the children ran, free of reprisal or direction from the only two adults with them. Once the clamor became a bit more in the background, our evening was brightened with the arrival of sneering, snarling, nose wrinkling, German Sprockets man. His goal was to annoy us in ways that the five children and trailer trash could not hit upon. First, he sauntered up to the washing machines into which I put detergent and the necessary quarters in preparation for Marieke to then activate and let the water suds a bit. He pushed the quarters in and looked at the one next to it, also with detergent and quarters and asked if we were using this one as well. ‘Uh yeah, and those are our quarters you just pushed in,’ ya jack knife. Are the washers free in Germany along with the freedom to wear sandals over socks, then? Then he proceeded to not be more than three feet in any direction from either of us while he was marching back and forth between the first washer and the second that he was using. Once his handkerchiefs were sufficiently unfurled and carefully placed in the optimal spot in the drum, and all of his articles were awash, he placed himself at the rear of the building, and even though he had the entire place to look at, including the television and the outside, stared at us. It was creepy.

I had to point out to Giant Eagle girl that the cars were still in front of the door three times and scolded two of the children for running around so close to the table. Nothing dictatorial, just a friendly reminder that this was not a playground and that they should not be running around. I nearly lost composure when I found one of the snotnoses hiding behind my hamper, touching and falling in, on and around it, barely keeping it upright.

It was a sight to behold when, after witnessing how unable the children were to keep what little food they were given off of their clothing, the floor, the chairs, the folding tables, the dryers, inside the dryers, the pop machines and the arcade games, the mother person laid newspaper in the bottom of the clothes cart that conveyed her laundry to her vehicle. Newspaper. Try putting some of that down your kids front when they eat. Better yet, use that to diaper your toddlers so they have exposure to literature. Put newspaper in the bottom of the clothes cart… are you even for serious?!

At some point during the evening, the mother had a Subway sandwich, and the children had a small bite, but continued to stare at her while she ate the rest. I felt bad for the kids, but felt even worse for the people they come into contact on a daily basis. If they are being sent to school and their teachers are not informing CYF that these children do not have proper hygiene at home, they are not doing their jobs at all. The one child had some kind of debris in his hair, which could have admittedly been obtained in the four hours or so since the school day ended, but it seemed like it had been resident upon his head for quite a bit longer than that. Their adult lives will likely be spent on the dole queue, sadly.

I love kids. I hate most of their parents because inevitably they will say or do something to their child that I would do differently in their place. That is a lot to say since I am not a parent, but I say it with a very high degree of confidence. I reserve the right to revisit this statement after my offspring have sprung.

Finally, they were gone and we had to spend the rest of the evening waiting for our laundry to dry and in fear of our lives from staring, snarling German Sprocket man. His penchant for causing discomfort was matched only by his inability to steer the three-wheeled clothes cart. We knew we were in the clear when he threw his laundered items into his basket cube and left.

Just another day at the laundromat.

Labels: Greenfield

 

1. What's the last thing you put in your mouth?
My inhaler.

2. Have you ever kissed anyone named Matthew?
No.

3. Where was your default picture taken?
N/A

4. Who was the last person you rode in a car with under the age of 20?
Probably Alyssa.

5. Can you play guitar hero?
I can, but I’m not very good.

6. Last time you walked further than a block?
Just two days ago. I walked from Squirrel Hill home.

7. Name someone that made you laugh today?
One of my wacky meth-cooking neighbors. She was out trying to call her cat, but was instead scaring the poor thing away. This was at 10:00am, her hair was a nest and her shirt was on backward. If I don’t laugh at these things, I will cry.

8. How late did you stay up last night and why?
About 1am. I usually don’t sleep unless my pill kicks in and forces my head to the pillow. Until then, my mind is a bee hive of activity.

9. If you could move somewhere else, would you?
I would love to move to a house where everything worked and I didn’t get anxious tremors thinking about all the crap that has gone, could go or is going wrong with our present domicile. I would prefer to either stay in Pittsburgh or move to someplace completely outrageous, like Paris or Madrid or Rotterdam.

10. Ever been kissed under fireworks?
Several times.

11. Do you believe ex's can be friends?
I don’t think any of my ex’s have met each other. Well, my one ex met my pre-ex and they didn’t get along at all. So I guess they can’t be friends.

12. Do you like calling or texting better?
Depends on who it is. I prefer texting when I’m busy, but I prefer talking to friends.

13. How do you feel about Diet Dr Pepper?
I hate diet anything.

14. What was the last movie you saw in the theater?
Star Trek

15. Where is your biological father right now?
I haven’t the foggiest. Wherever he is, I’m sure he’s on some kind of probation.

16. Where are you right now?
At home in my office.

17. What bed did you sleep in last night?
The one in my bedroom.

18. What was the last thing someone bought for you?
A really awesome pair of shoes.

19. Who took your profile picture?
Probably me.

20. Who was the last person you took a picture of?
My wacky meth-cooking neighbor. She is too funny for words… also most people don’t believe me when I tell them about the situation, so I make sure to have pictures to back it all up!

21. Was yesterday better than today?
The day is still young, so many things could go wrong… ask me again tomorrow!

22. Can you live a day without TV?
Sure.

23. Are you a bad influence?
Everyone says I am, but I don’t think so.

24. What items could you not go without during the day?
My wondrous, magical laptop, inhaler, earbuds, allergy pills

25. Would you share a drink with a stranger?
I would probably just give it to them if they needed it. No need to upset the natural balance of germs, is there?

26. Who was the last person you visited in the hospital?
Kara… She is probably the last person many people last visited in a hospital. It was during her gall bladder surgery.

27. What does the last text message in your inbox say?
”Is there hockey?”

28. What are you wearing?
Plaid flannel shirt over a Pens tee and my new jeans.

29. How many times have you been pulled over by the police?
I think like five or so, but one of the first times was completely bogus, so I went to the magistrate and got it dismissed.

30. If we were to look in your inbox, what would we find?
Epic volumes of spam and several confirmations for software downloads.

31. Has anyone ever called you perfect before?
I’ve been called a perfectionist, but usually people just call me ‘Rich’.

32. What song is stuck in your head?
None, but I’m listening to Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto.

33. Someone knocks on your window at 2 am, who do you want it to be?
It had better be Publisher’s Clearinghouse. Otherwise, it is probably some poor soul who has just been through a terrible sky-diving mishap and is caught in the treetops. I might let him in for a fee, but it would drive the dogs insane.

34. What gets in your way of your sleeping?
Allergies, the beehive that is located my mind, interesting things to read on Cracked.com.

35. Who was your last missed call on your cell phone?
Jen

36. Can you handle the truth?
Yeah.

37. What was the last book you read?
"Renegade: The Making of a President" by Richard Wolffe.

38. Is there something you always wear?
During chilly days, a hoodie… during warm days, flip-flops.

39. Have you ever crawled through a window?
Oh my yes… many many times.

40. What is something that can always make you feel better?
Looking at old pictures or reading old blog posts.

41. What do you want right now?
I would like to have my new shoes.

42. Look behind you, what do you see?
Three pictures: The Dalai Lama, Two dragons fighting for a pearl and the Chinese ‘Shi’ poem.

43. Have you ever worked in a food place?
Yeah… McDonald’s (two different ones) and South Hills Country Club.

Labels: survey

The 6th term is providing the stage for a major slump. I am so not motivated to do anything for either of my classes. My attention is drifting like major big-time- I must have read the same damn page at least three or four times before I could even give you an idea of what it said. Here’s the kicker, the subject was about the GUI that we’re using, so nothing overly technical was involved. It was actually mildly interesting since the author has at least some ability to keep the subject matter from drying. It took me four tries to figure out that it was a pretty decent chapter.

That’s just for my Java class. C# is going nowhere, and I do mean nowhere. My first assignment was due two days ago- I haven’t even started writing it yet. The research is pretty much done and the paper is only about 6 pages, but just the thought of writing it makes me either want to go to bed and sleep for a month or causes me to suddenly become interested in cleaning my office.

I bought a 6-pack at Hough’s in the hopes that some Yeungling Bock would lubricate my motivational wheels. So far, it hasn’t done a bad job… but I’m writing this instead of preparing for the first of two seminars in a row that begins in just under a half-hour. Having said that, I did begin copying the Unit 2 class info into OneNote.

Also, I don’t know hat the Penguins-Predators score is, so that’s good I guess… even though I’m sort of putting a temporary exile on myself for the first period of Penguins hockey to see if me watching is causing them to loose the whole game (!). Ok… I just found out that the Pens are down my 1. Back to work!

Labels: classes , Hough's

9/11 has been a date of reflection for the last nine years. My time is mostly spent viewing images and watching CNBC as it airs the exact morning broadcast of the Today show on that morning. It is aired in realtime. Some say the practice is morbid, but I maintain a certain degree of catharsis exists for me. I’ve considered spending the day volunteering in my community. In whatever activity I find myself, my consideration lies with the thousands of lives lost, the terrible horror that beset New York, Washington and a small field in my backyard.

Dwelling on the philosophies behind the actions are inescapable. Extremist and misguided puts it simply. Deep introspection might lead one to a far more complicated answer. Our own government’s policies during the last fifty years may shed some light for some people as to why this country deserves the wrath of a jihad.

Jihad is an Arabic term that means Holy War in the Islamic faith. In context, the jihad must occur when the right to practice Islam is in jeopardy or has been banned by a governing body. When Afghanistan was invaded in 1979 by the Soviet Union, a jihad was ordered because a prospective Democratic Republic of Afghanistan would promote state atheism on a national level.

The United States has generally not been a promoter of any form of religious suppression. In fact, religious freedom is one of the cornerstones upon which this country was built. For the sake of common ground, let us stipulate that what transpired on September 11, 2001 was instigated by a small group of extremist individuals who did what they did in the name of their religion for reasons that are not valid in their religion. The act was condemned by every Muslim country on the planet except Afghanistan.

At no time do any of my retrospective activities involve placing blame on an entire people nor a whole religion. Doing so would severely overstate what occurred to say nothing of dishonoring the memories of those who lost their lives on that day. The small percentage of Islam that includes Al-Qaeda sympathizers does not represent even what could be perceived as a minority in the religion.

Having said all this, burning a Quran does not embody a philosophy that is held by the whole of America, nor even what could be considered a minority of Christians. It is wrong to do so. It is endangering the lives of every American. It is an act which enflames a vision of what America is and what its citizens believe. For the record, nobody thinks this is a good idea. Nobody would ever think this is a good idea under any circumstance.

The actions of Terry Jones and his associates in Florida are the same as those committed by the terrorist hijackers on September 11, 2001. It is stupidity and it is wrong. Morally and ethically wrong. I don’t subscribe to a single religious belief, but I am aware of a number of them. According to every religion, the prospect of burning a sacred text is religiously wrong, no matter whose religion is on what side of the flame.

Labels: politics

On 11 November 2008, I wrote on the passage of Proposition 8 in California. On this date, 4 August 2010, twenty-one months later, I am writing about the death of Proposition 8.

U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker ruled Proposition 8 unconstitutional. When I first heard the news, I was listening to Tchaikovsky’s 1st Piano Concerto, performed by Harvey Lavan "Van" Cliburn Jr. How appropriate on so many different levels.

My first reaction was, of course, relief that a major road block to civil rights was overturned and recognized for what it was: unconstitutional. As I began thinking about it though, I soon realized that there is probably a long appeals process ahead. I know that before the ruling was handed down, opposing counsel filed an order to stay the ruling until the 9th Circuit has had a go at it. Well, it’s a good start anyway and I’ll post an update when I hear more about the stay.

The Conclusion and part of the Remedy from the ruling:

Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

California is able to issue marriage licenses to same-sex
couples, as it has already issued 18,000 marriage licenses to samesex
couples and has not suffered any demonstrated harm as a result,
see FF 64-66; moreover, California officials have chosen not to
defend Proposition 8 in these proceedings.

If that doesn’t sound like history, I don’t know what does. Due Process and Equal Protection rights under the 14th Amendment are alive and well again.

Ted Olson and David Boies, the lawyers who brought the case in front of the court are guests on tonight’s Rachel Maddow.

What a victory for the US Constitution.

Having read this, I can hardly believe that I’m about to hit the publish button since it looks like utter crap… I haven’t been sleeping lately and this subject truly deserves a far, far better treatment that I here am providing. Apologies.

Labels: civil rights , politics

The professor sounds like Mr. Mackey from South Park. Almost to the tee. When she asks a question and people respond, even when none of the answers are even remotely similar, the prof would say things like “Looks like everyone is saying…” and then insert the correct answer or the answer she is teaching to. It is most annoying. Sometimes, NOBODY has said that. UGH!!

She also says things twice in a row. it’s like she’s trying to convince us that she is right. I can’t stand this. I think I'm going to post some of the seminar… just so that I can assure myself that I’m not completely crazy!

She says sheet instead of document or file. As in ‘Can everyone get that sheet up on their screens?’ Instead of ‘Please open the file’.

It is so A to the NOYING!!

Labels: classes

There are no words to describe just how terrible this class is. There are so many things wrong with it that i can’t even find one thing that’s right with it.

The professor is overly fond of saying ‘so to speak’ when she isn’t quite sure what she is saying is making any sense. She sais this so that we will take what is being said with a hint of abstraction. For example, she will say things like ‘…try and implement that in your paper, so to speak.’ No part of that sentence made any kind of sense.

When asked directly what exactly is expected in the paper, she responds with a generalized statement which sounds like English, but is actually a dialect of Ancient North Martian.

She also enjoys ‘axing’ questions. I have no patience and little tolerance for such ignorance in a college level class. The kicker really came about a week ago when we were discussing an upcoming assignment, which was a simple peer review. She began talking about collaborations and why they work and reasons they don’t work. I was so confused about what we were doing. So I asked her what the assignment was and she replied, “The assignment is a peer-review,” to which I asked, “Then why are we talking about collaborating with other people on a writing project?”

“Richard,” she said, “A peer-review is a collaboration, so to speak, and you need to know how to do that for this assignment.”

I had to let it go, because I wasn’t sure what to say to that or how to make my question any more clear.

This is so frustrating and the level of stress is having a very negative effect on my other classes. I can’t sleep at night because of the stress I’m feeling in this class. And it’s not just that situation, either, that is putting me in a dire situation.

Most of our assignments from now and until the end of the class depend on receiving a peer review. Nobody in my entire class has given that to me because I am stuck with the last 5 people in class whose names happen to end with a w, a y, or a z… and those people don’t even do anything in class.

I am so frustrated that I may actually cry over this.

Labels: classes

For the last month or so, I have been in association with Allegheny Family Network as a web designer. Marieke heard that AFN’s Executive Director needed to have the website updated. Being the wonderful, supportive wifey that she is, my contact info was given and I got a phone call the following Wednesday.

We set up a meeting for the next day. Since Neil was staying with us during his leave, I decided that he should make himself useful and give me a ride into Oakland. I had no idea how long the meeting would be, but on my way to the building, I ran across someone who asked if I was the web designer. He introduced himself as the ‘network guy’. It was a bit awkward shaking his hand because his right hand was considerably smaller than his left and was at the end of a smaller than typical arm. It took me by surprise because it’s not something you see everyday, but I offered my right hand when he offered his left and had sort of a pseudo shake. It was unsettling, not because of the non-typical appearance of his limb, but because I didn’t know what was expected of me in that situation.

I met Ruth, the Executive Director, and Ronn (yes, with two n’s at the end), the anointed ‘Database guy’ before the four of us sat at a round, glass table with faux flowers in the center round beneath. It was determined that the previous website was not appropriate for the direction AFN was moving in. I was asked to update it by adding recent newsletters and replacing some old information with new. My fee would be a modest sum (my typical going rate), and it should take no more than two weeks to complete- working at half time- so 40 hours.

Since the meeting went on for longer than i anticipated, Neil was a bit of a cranky pants when I got back to the car. I think all was forgotten when I bought us a bottle of Captain Morgan to celebrate my new assignment- the first in about a year.

When I discovered the next day the particulars of the AFN website, I was nearly shocked to death, for it wasn’t really a website at all, but merely a blog with a very fancy template. I also found that it was being held together by a small, very delicate thread. The first tug would cause the entire template to fail and the website would be virtually useless.

Back to Ruth’s office. I wasn’t looking forward to this meeting at all. Not that Ruth is by any stretch mean, but she is a little intimidating. She has a certain look that precludes even the remote possibility of bullshit on any level. My fear was that she would think that I was trying to scam her or otherwise not give her the benefit of the truth. When I found out that AFN paid nearly ten-thousand dollars for what I laughingly referred to as a website, I was doubly sure that she would banish me from her office.

I was relieved when she listened to my concerns and ideas for a solution with patience and even more so when she began offering her own ideas for a solution.

With a mutual understanding of what needed to be done in order to move the website forward into the realm of actual benefit to the organization, we decided that a new website was the best course of action. Ruth would need to get approval from the Board of Directors in order to proceed with drawing up a contract for the work to begin.

About three weeks later, Ruth informed me that the Board said yes and I was to return to her office to sign a contract so that work on the website could begin.

Labels: web projects , work

Season finale of Glee was on tonight. In other news it looks like Semi-Super Tuesday Primary elections for the mid-terms have shaped an interesting November. I’m not as into it as I would normally be. The tea is helping with that.

I met mom at Giant Eagle to get a book from her that she checked out of the Pitt law library for me. The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation. It is the 16th edition, which unfortunately does not have the information I need- how does one cite Supreme Court Oral Arguments in APA style? I’ve looked everywhere and I can’t find it at all. Thankfully, she is going to photocopy a couple pages out of the most recent edition for me.

This is being written in bed, thanks to the fact that my laptop is so awesome. I had to throw that in there.

For the new school week, I hope to have more practice exercises done for my IT class and maybe this week my writing class will make sense. I haven’t yet written the midterm survey for that class, but it will be scathing. I can’t stand the fact that the prof for my Comp II class can’t write for shit. Or more to the point, her writing is shit. I find that she writes with the same cadence and lack of clarity similarly to the way a certain former GOP VP candidate speaks. It is annoying to say the least.

The coming weeks (maybe months) are not going to be comfortable at all. if there is a way to go without or make due, I can’t think of one. We’re headed to KMart to get the first of two necessities to help us get through. As a result of the predicament, I am now ‘in charge’ of the finances. Oh good, because I certainly didn’t have enough to do already. Ugh. Maybe I’ll feel more useful.

Nearly 2.5 hours after taking my melatonin pill, I am not yet sleepy.

Labels: classes , family , house , politics

As a special treat, and because we had such a great experience during our last trip, I bought Marieke and I tickets to the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra concert performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. We shared the June 6 Sunday afternoon with Lucy and Greg, who were also attending the concert. The Ninth has always been one of my favorites. I remember playing it when I studied violin in elementary and middle school. In recent years, I have acquired several performances of the piece from a wide variety of sources. My personal favorite is the Bernstein version played live across the world on Christmas, 1989. He replaced Freude (Joy) with Freiheit (Freedom), in celebration of the demise of the Berlin Wall. In the days before the concert, I posted a series of 9th trivia on my Facebook status. Here is the collection of them:

1. At the end of the premiere of his Ninth Symphony, Beethoven had to be turned around to see the tumultuous applause of the audience; hearing nothing, he wept.
2. Seiji Ozawa conducted the Nagano Winter Orchestra as well as seven choirs in six countries on five continents, performing the Fourth Movement from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in its entirety, for the 1998 Winter Olympic Games during the finale of the Opening Ceremony. The chorus locations were New York City, Berlin, Cape Point, Sydney, and Beijing, with two in Nagano: the Tokyo Opera Singers and the audience at Nagano Olympic Stadium.
3. Philips, the company that had started the work on a new audio format, the compact disk, originally planned for a CD to have a diameter of 11.5 cm, the width of the then popular compact cassette, while Sony planned a 10 cm diameter, even more compact but enough for one hour of music. However, Norio Ohga, Sony's CEO in 1979, insisted that the CD be able to contain a complete performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. The longest known performance lasted 74 minutes. This was a mono recording made during the Bayreuther Festspiele in 1951 and conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler. This therefore became the playing time of a CD. A diameter of 12 centimeters was required for this playing time.
4. For the final movement of his Ninth symphony, Beethoven set to music the "Ode to Joy" written in 1785 by Friedrich von Schiller. This poem expresses Schiller's idealistic vision of the human race becoming brothers- a vision Beethoven shared. In 1972, the Council of Europe adopted Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" theme as its own anthem. Herbert Von Karajan wrote an orchestral arrangement, without words, in the universal language of music, which became the official anthem of the European Union. The anthem expresses the ideals of freedom, peace and solidarity for which Europe stands.
5. During the 1989 student protests in Beijing, a recording of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony was played over a makeshift speaker system to drown out the voice of the government telling the people to end their protest. It was chosen specifically for the ubiquitous themes of freedom and brotherhood.
   Leonard Bernstein conducted a version of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, with "Freiheit" ("Freedom") replacing "Freude" ("Joy"), to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall during Christmas 1989.

Manfred Honeck, the Music Director of the PSO, did a splendid job. The older gentleman seated next to me and I had a difficult time keeping our emotions contained and we both had damp cheeks by ovation time.

Labels: concerts , music

The SCOTUS case that has come close to driving me mad.

Court Docs:
City of Ontario, CA v Jeff Quon	SCOTUS Oral Arguments
Quon v. ARCH WIRELESS OPERATING CO., INC.	9th Circuit Opinion

Readings:
The Information Management Journal September/October 2008	Bosses Can’t Read Employees’ Messages,Court Says
Michigan Law Review Volume 102:801	The Fourth Amendment and New Technologies: Constitutional Myths and The Case For Caution Orin S. Kerr
Yale Law School Civil Liberties Online Fall 2008	Clinical Reading Group on Electronic Communications Privacy
ASAP: Littler Mendelson July 2008	Employee Text Messages Are Not Inviolate: Understanding and Navigating the Ninth Circuit’s Decision in Quon v. Arch Wireless Operating Company
Berkeley Technology Law Journal Volume 24:719	Quon v. ARCH WIRELESS OPERATING CO. 554 F.3d 769 (9th Cir. 2009)

Over the last month or so, I’ve lost my dreamy-eyed wonder over this case. That is until I had to hash out the particulars of certain relationships between the people involved (Quon et al). I’m not in love with writing about how “this guy is that guy’s mistresses’ husband,” and “torrid love affairs conducted with grammatically challenged, English language deprived text messages,” but it does serve to spice it up a bit.

Hopefully, I can get this 40 page beast of a project done by my summer deadline. If not, at least I have 40 pages on a useless-to-anyone-but-me subject. Hooray.

Labels: classes , SCOTUS

Since I realized that the unwanted weight that came along with smoking cessation would not go quietly into the night as I once thought, my quest to loose the extra 10 pounds has taken me down an oriental road in the form of drinking lots and lots of green tea. Real green tea. From China. Since I have been drinking so much of it, the quantity is slowly dwindling. This makes me nervous. I have scarcely had any other beverage and it is so yummy.

Therefore, I am putting out an APB on these five teas that I love so much. I would prefer exact replicas, but will settle for reasonable facsimiles.

This is really amazing oolong tea. It is from Fujian. The label reads as follows: “Special Grade Oolong Tea, Made in Ruyi tea factory Anxi Fujian”. Truly, the best tea I have ever tasted.
This is also delicious oolong tea, but not as good as the kind made in the Ruyi tea factory in Fujian. The instructions are in both Japanese and Chinese.
I do not know what this tea tastes like. But I like the container- a tall cylinder, maybe about a foot in height. I wouldn’t mind having this much oolong tea.
This green tea consists of small leaves in bunches at times and they resemble sticks and twigs. The shape of them allows for a comfortable fit into my infuser and is best warm brewed. This is a medium sized square metal container.
This green tea is made of much larger leaves, usually whole and recognizable as leaves, even though they are dry. This is so delicious cold brewed, as indicated by the picture.

If anyone has any idea where I can find something like anything that is above, please let me know as soon as possible.

Thanks!

I’m not entirely sure why I feel compelled to post this sort of thing. Anyway… this was an easy one- I got it done with about 45 minutes to spare!

1. Essentials
   a.    BIOS
   What is the purpose of the BIOS?
   How do you update the BIOS?
   b.    CMOS
   What type of information is stored on the CMOS?
   How do you update the CMOS?
2. Batteries
   a.    What is battery memory?
   b.    What is the difference between Ni-Cd batteries and Ni-MH batteries?
   c.    What are 3 benefits of Li-ion batteries?
3. Interrupt Requests (IRQs)
   a.    Define interrupt request
   b.    What is APIC?
   c.    What is DMA?
4. Disassembly
   a.    How do you identify Pin 1?
   b.    Why is it important to handle a hard drive carefully?
5. Power supplies
   a.    What is voltage?
   b.    What are amps?
   c.    What is wattage?
   d.    What are ohms?
   e.    What are the 3 basic types of connectors on a PC power supply that supply power to peripherals?
   f.    What is a UPS?  What does it do?

Contents:

• Reading this week
• Supplemental Videos
• The Screen Savers- How To Build A PC In 7 Parts

Reading this week:

 

Supplemental Videos:

Building a PC – PC Magazine (Short Version)
Build a PC in 10 Seconds
Installing Motherboard
Computer Ports
Computer Data Ports

 

The Screen Savers- How To Build A PC In 7 Parts:

How To Build A PC- Part 1 of 7
How To Build A PC- Part 2 of 7
How To Build A PC- Part 3 of 7
How To Build A PC- Part 4 of 7
How To Build A PC- Part 5 of 7
How To Build A PC- Part 6 of 7
How To Build A PC- Part 7 of 7

Labels: classes , reading

Vancouver, BC hosted the best ever Winter games. The home athletes won more gold medals than any other country. I am so proud to be neighbors with such a welcoming people. With open arms, our Canadian friends beckoned to the world and with open hearts, made us all feel at home there.

Very rarely do I root for anyone but either the US or Dutch team. This time, it was different because Sidney Crosby was an alternate captain for the Canadian Men’s Ice Hockey team, and I can’t root against Crosby, so I had to root for him. I purchased a #87 Team Canada jersey and proceeded to raise ruckus at victory and naval gaze at (only one!!) defeat.

To understand hockey in general is to recognize that the game holds a status in Canada similar to that of religion. A sacred, honored tradition that requires no less than the devotion of most if not all of the thirty-four million inhabitants. Pittsburgh has a strong hockey tradition too, largely because of our climate, but also because 19% of ice hockey players in the XXI Winter Olympiad are or were Pittsburgh Penguins at one point or another in the past. Our former player and coach, Ed Olczyk, provided half of NBC’s color commentary during the entire Olympics. We are proud of legacy.

How could I watch Olympic hockey and not root for team Canada? And when the Gold Medal game went into overtime tied at 2, I *knew* that Sidney Crosby would break the tie and win gold for his country. Make no mistake, the first 7 minutes, 39 seconds were rough… but when he got that puck in the net, I swear, I could hear all of Canada cheering if I turned my head just so and the wind was right.

Gold wasn’t around the necks of just the men’s Canadian hockey team- the women’s Canadian hockey team won their gold medal match just three days earlier- also against team USA. In a bizarre turn of Olympic statistics, Finland won bronze in both events, so that the results were equal in both men’s and women’s ice hockey- something that has never happened.

Along with Ice Hockey, several dozen Curling games are played during the course of a Winter Olympics. I watched about fifteen round robin matches and all six medal matches. I was rooting for Team USA men’s, Team Canada men’s and women’s, Team Britain men’s and women’s and Team Norway men’s because of the pants.

Another amazing feat at these Olympics was the amount of gold won by the host country. A record was set in both the number of gold medals won by Canada in a Winter Olympics and the number of gold medals won by any other participating NOC in Winter Olympic history- 14. With amazing ease and cheers from an entire nation, Alexandre Bilodeau became the first Canadian ever to win an Olympic gold medal on home soil in men’s Freestyle Skiing Moguls. It was a magical moment. The entire XXI Winter Olympics were magical. Not to sound too corny, but I sincerely wish that Canada could host every winter Olympics from now on. These were, by far, my favorite Winter Olympics.

Labels: Olympics , sports

I think I have subconsciously sabotaged my own computer so that I can avoid my math class... and in royal fashion. However, my life is now turned upside down and it feels like I am missing a huge portion of myself. This is because of the brilliant, smart and intelligent move by the idiot 'Raul', a service technician at KU, whose idea to re-install Firefox without my consent during a session share, caused my bookmarks, user names and passwords to become part of the great wind. Thank you, Raul. May your testicles be clamped for all of eternity and may your face be coated in maggot shit for ten years.

Labels: random events , unlikely events

As the third term begins, I find myself petrified at taking a math class. It has been so long and I have such an aversion to the subject to begin with.

I am invited to a seminar on 2/24 at 4pm, with three more seminars scheduled throughout the term, which is confusing because I don't know if that means that I will not have a weekly seminar for this class or if these are three special seminars in addition to the regular weekly ones.

The class is called MM150-32: Survey of Mathematics. The book came on my birthday and has alot of ground covered, including statistics, algebra and calculus (and I just peed myself).

The only other thing that I'm dealing with is the annoying delay in getting our new e-mail UI.

Not the smoothest of starts to a term, but we'll manage.

Labels: classes

3D movies are weird. The glasses fit over my own and apparently caused a resemblance to Roy Orbison. Getting used to the way the movie looked and the 3D effects were difficult to get used to and the warning on the package stated that if you started to feel strange, you may be experiencing a seizure. Yikes. Almost immediately, the main protagonist has to adjust to his new alien body. I felt a connection to him because I was trying to get used to the 3D aspects.

Overall the movie was good. I liked the way the alien culture was created using aspects of both native American and African cultures- both strongly identified with nature. The effects were amazing, and the 3D was great. Due to the nature of how the movie rendered in 3D, it was impossible to tell if the computer animation was realistic; the entire thing looked like a viewfinder and even the 'real' people looked animated.

The central antagonist was very much over-the-top and I thought the role as a composite, was not properly averaged out over political, military and corporate evils, but rather simply added up. The actual corporate token character was too weak.

It was all very imaginative and the environment aspects were incredibly original.

During the progress of the story, I felt that certain portrayals betrayed suspension of disbelief. There already is so much to suspend, that even the slightest departure from a realistic human condition, provides an element of utter disbelief.

Another part of the movie that sort of bothered me was the romantic scene. So, here we are on this world with large blue beings with tails and a 'bonding braid', who have connections to animals and even the planet itself, and you are trying to convince me that all there is to intimacy is light kissing? I was expecting something strange or a higher intimacy level. It seemed like 'The People' had a closer bond with their horses than with each other. It was all very strange.

Even with all of the plot difficulties and character establishment issues, it was still an amazing movie with a powerful message. I'm not convinced it should have been nominated for 'Best Picture,' though.

Labels: movies

Icicles. The sharpest of them are perfect murder weapons. The heaviest of them can take down gutters. Luckily, the latter, not the former applied to those hanging from and around our house.

I tried to keep ahead of the icicles growing on the front of the house, both from the porch roof and the house roof. Fairly early on, batting them down from the bedroom window resulted in the drain half of the gutter coming down. It sits on the porch roof waiting until one or both of us are in a prone position to fall on our heads.

Not having the gutter present allowed a rather large chunk of ice to form on the three wires which provide our home with electricity. After trying a pole, longer ole, curtain rod, hairdryer and cursing at it, Marieke suggested I use the gecko sprayer filled with hot salty water to melt the ice. Our fair cross-street neighbors were kind enough to act as audience, promising a round of applause if I was successful. I was and afterward, we left to do laundry.

The back of the house was a different world altogether. The ones growing above the back door needed daily whacking to keep the dogs safe. Little known to me, there was a much larger danger just out of my line of sight. Since I could barely venture 5 feet from the back door without fusing pitons, I was unaware that the icicle growing to the left was not growing from the roof of the mudroom, but was in fact growing from the roof of the house. It was freestanding and about 25-30 feet long.

To the gecko room we went. Once the lizards were out of the way (and covered), I leaned out and began whacking at the monster. A couple minutes later, we were running downstairs to make sure the mud room was still there and still had all of its windows.

After determining that all was good, we discovered that the top of the giant ice tentacle was at least 27 or 28 inches wide. It was literally an ice boulder now.

Marieke then leaned out of the window in the office and began bringing some of those ones down. Not wanting anymore large icicles to form, I shoveled some of the snow off the mudroom roof.

Over the next couple days, as the temperature rose above freezing, more and more ice fell to the ground. Most of it landing with multiple thuds and at least twice, landing so hard that it rocked the house and caused the lights to flicker.

Another ice chunk was on the house closest to ours, reaching from the top of that house all the way to the ground, in the space between the two houses. I knew I had to take it down before it fell uncontrolled into the basement window. It wasn’t as wide at the top as our ice monster, but it was much, much taller and the window was directly across from the base. While Marieke hung out in the mudroom, I managed to push it away from the window and it came crashing down. Marieke said it sounded like it was going to come through the dining room wall. I was actually worried for a minute that it would start falling toward me, in which case, I’m not entirely certain I would be writing about it today.

Hopefully we’re done with these ridiculously large icicles for the season… maybe even for a few years or so.

Labels: snow

The XXI Winter Olympic Medal Table

Labels: Olympics , sports

When the weather report mentioned another 9 inches of snow, I almost had a conniption. The streets were hardly cleared from the massive snow that we just had and now they’re talking about another nine inches?!

I think all of Pittsburgh must have been in shock. Marieke had yesterday off. For the first time ever, the County Court of Common Pleas closed. The kids had a third day off from school today.

There is currently a bit of controversy brewing about snow removal and the city’s lack of response to the first storm, let alone what little response there has been to the second storm. To add fuel to the fire, the Post Gazette posted the following on their blog:

In case you missed it, the PG posted a map of city salt routes that shows the web of city and state roads through Pittsburgh's 55 square miles.

Red indicates a state road, yellow means a primary road, blue means secondary and green means tertiary. Each Public Works division has a list of priority roads.

As for the homestead, I performed my duties, clearing off the steps and sidewalk, digging out the car and going to the grocery store. Part of going tot he store everyday was to see what the ‘outside world’ looked like, since Montclair is always so isolated.

As the above slideshow reveals, the additional snow was almost more than I could bear.

As the slideshow to the right reveals, it was almost more than the city could bear. Walking in it was really difficult on the ankles because even on the street, it was slippy. On the sidewalks that weren’t shoveled, ridges appeared, forcing your foot to slide sideways and downward on almost every step. The only clear spot I came across in terms of the sidewalk in the business area was Parkvale Savings. Their lot was clear, the entire sidewalk surrounding their building was clear and salted. Giant Eagle’s parking lot was a mess. The only part of the sidewalk along Greenfield Ave. that was cleared off was in front of Homer’s; they have a snow blower. The other side was a complete mess. The Buddhists were the only other place along Greenfield who even made an attempt at shoveling. It was a sobering experience at Giant Eagle when I saw the manager handing out vouchers for bread, the entire multi shelf trolley having been emptied. In the dairy section, it looked like they were preparing to do the same thing for milk. There were two gallons of whole left and nothing else. Three workers were standing there watching me walk past, their expressions a mix of anticipation and dread that I would begin demanding products that were not on the shelves. I considered doing just that, even though I didn’t need any, just to see what they would do, but decided against it since my striped scarf would only muffle anything I might say.

I made several videos with both the camera and my phone for posterity. This was, after all, one of the heaviest snow falls in the history of the city. Both Marieke and I had some fun with the macro setting on the camera and as soon as I get a data cord or flash card, the pics and vids can come out of my phone. The gallery to the left is of the various plants around the house that looked neato with the snow on them. This is more attention than these plants have received in three years!

There are some pics of some holly bushes down the street, but they’re not in this gallery. I will be posting those to Facebook as soon as I can spend more than fifteen minutes on the computer without trying to fix whatever else might be going wrong with my final project. Unfortunately, those of us attending internet school do not get snow days!

Labels: snow

In the evening of Thursday, February 4, Marieke and I returned from an epic grocery shopping trip; we needed just about everything. Our normal parking spot was being taken up by one of Marty’s friends, the same one who a few weeks ago, bumped the car trying to get out of the driveway, whilst not paying attention to Marty’s directions. He was kind enough to move his truck before we unloaded too many more groceries. We told Marty that it was a good thing, too because we had to stock up ahead of the storm, which was, at that point, forecasting 5-8 inches. The snow was going to come over the course of the next day and should be pretty much over by midnight.

In the afternoon of Friday, February 5, Marieke said that the people she was in training with decided to end early because one of them heard the storm was now going to dump 9-12 inches of snow. This was somewhat hard to believe, since in storms past, the forecast was always off by at least 3 inches, usually on the short end at that.

By that evening, having decided to stay ahead of the snow and keep the sidewalk and steps periodically clear, we went outside to find Marty, his girlfriend Debbie and their dog, Carmen San Diego, already out, doing the same thing we were doing. I brought Oskar down and ran up and down the street with him as he tried not to let on that he was interested in playing with Carmen. The four of us concluded that we may just hit the 12 inch mark since there was already a substantial pile of snow on the cars and it was only 9pm.

We went to bed that night, expecting a heavier than normal, but not an outrageous amount of snow. Our plans for the next day were still on: Marieke had an afternoon hair appointment and then we were off to get Alyssa for a sleepover. While our plans may have to be pushed back to accommodate clearing the steps and brushing off the car, it wouldn’t amount to more than 15 minutes to a half hour delay.

On the morning of Saturday, February 8, I was startled awake at 7:30am, by three words that I heard coming from the television: ‘state of emergency’. The local channel 4 news had a ticker running along the bottom with ‘County commissioner declares state of emergency in Allegheny County’. Within about five minutes, ten other counties did the same. After another five minutes, the governor announced that the entire state was under emergency declaration. The reason for these successive declarations was linked to the 24 inches of snow that somehow fell to the ground. The official total as of 8:00am was 18-24 inches; some parts of the area had up to 28 inches.

All we could do was run from window to window shrieking in disbelief.

I really didn’t want to double the work of shoveling, so we decided to wait until the snow stopped before beginning the clean up process. Of course, we had to cancel our plans, much to the horror of Alyssa. She even tried to convince Carey that Bill could bring her here.

Mom had my gloves from last Friday when we had to retrieve her phone, so I needed them before I could start the process anyway.

Plans were drawn up to meet mom at Giant Eagle, or closer to her place, sometime after noon. She couldn’t wait to bring them, so had to stand on the sidewalk until I finished digging out the steps.

Digging those steps out and the sidewalk was nothing short of a feat. Perhaps not enough can be said for having done alot of ‘pre-shoveling’ the night before, even though it didn’t look like I shoveled at all.

I offered to help dig out the cross street neighbors after finishing our side of the street, since there was no sign of Marty at this point (he came out after I finished helping the ladies). They gladly accepted and we worked to keep most of the shoveled snow in the driveway and not around the car.

We did have some fun during the whole mess. ‘Fluffy’, the strange, white, long hair cat who makes his home on Montclair, made no effort to hide the fact that the street snow made for an excellent potty. I fell into a snow bank while trying to cross the street and Marieke took to throwing snowballs at me as I shoveled.

It’s kind of fun to be stranded in the snow and be snowed in, but literally hundreds of thousands of people are without power in the city and I can not fully express how grateful we are that we still have our lights on. Watching the nearly 12 hour local news coverage of the snow storm was interesting. Over the course of the day, the governor shut down all the interstates and the city learned that our mayor was out of town to celebrate his birthday. Of course, we have plenty of snacks for the Super Bowl between the Colts and Saints (Geaux Saints!!!) later.

I doubt Marieke will be going to work tomorrow.

Labels: snow

2010 is starting out fairly well. Marieke begins her new job on the 5th and I'm doing quite well in my classes. She doesn't get paid until the first week in February, but we have confidence that we'll make it till then.

Brian came for a visit on the Monday before Christmas. He got in around 6 and we went straight to Hough's for dinner and drink... and the Pen's game. He stayed the night and left Tuesday morning. Cindy sent him up here with a metric ton of food for our Christmas presents, in true Cindy style, some of it had long expired, but most of it was sufficient to go into the pantry for later consumption- it is, after all, about to be a lean month. She also sent along her traditional Wal-Mart gift card, which we used for Christmas dinner.

As for our usual Christmas tradition of having Jen, her mom and brothers and my mom over, we done canceled it because we just couldn't handle having everyone over. Cleaning was part of it, but there was also the space factor with the new dining room table and we still hadn't recovered from the major drama of the year, so no, we're just not ready for it. At least mom understood. She bought me a bottle of wine and Bailey's for Marieke for our Christmas gifts, then we went next door to look for movies to watch on Christmas. We got a few really good ones, including 'The Hangover' and 'Four Christmases'. Mom surprised us and paid for the movies too, which made it all the better. I made the fifth season of Weeds into DVDs. The day consisted of sitting on the sofa in pajamas, watching movies, then a nice dinner (which I couldn't really enjoy because I got a 24 hour bug thing that made me sick... Marieke got it the next day too) and nothing else.

When I say dinner, I mean that we went out and found a cheap turkey, got up early and roasted it, made mashed potatoes, stuffing, Marieke's sweet potato oranges and veggies, but with portions just enough for two with some left overs. It was, in all connotations of the word, perfect.

We had enough turkey left over to make a decent amount of turkey salad in the big bowl. After about a week of nothing but, we quickly called it quits and had to throw it away on the first trash pick-up of 2010. The antics of Marieke and I can scarcely be underestimated, for even the mundane, often unpleasant work of cleaning out the fridge in this case turned into a raucous event. We both knew the turkey salad was 'turning' and neither of us wanted to empty the contents into the bag, so I ended up doing it. Not wanting to drag the anticipation out any longer than I had to, I asked that Marieke 'hand me the turkey before I chicken out.' This promptly began an approximately fifteen minute laughing binge for the two of us as we both caught the ridiculous poultry metaphor and began to indulge the humor of the situation by throwing words like 'goose' and 'duck' into the mix. It was about the best night of garbage we've ever had.

For New Year, we stayed in because the weather peeps kept threatening freezing rain and drizzle. Olie Bollen were extra good this year, but we missed Kara for them (we tried not to dwell). The fireworks I got for last year's birthday worked well for sending 2009 back to the seventh level of whatever hell it came from.

If 2010 is even 1% better than 2009, it will be a vast, vast improvement.

Labels: New Year