Collateral Bloggage

This is the time of the year where I generally stop putting in Hold Requests for new books at the library.  Why?  Because there are usually several books I’ve started but not finished that I try to double-back and finish before the end of the year.  I’ve got one that’s been dangling for two years or so, and I think it’ll continue to dangle into next year.

In any case, I feel like I should backtrack a bit…I call it Booktracking.  At least now I do, because I so enjoy making up new words.  So I’m going to attempt to finish the five or six books I’ve started but not finished this year.

And then I had to go and by the new Ender book, plus three others (The Impossible Faith, The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views, and Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue.  Oh well…maybe I’ll be able to resist them until next year.  Yeah.

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My sister and brother-in-law and their kids are here.  And I just had a birthday (I’m now over 21 again).  This was the first time since 1993 I’d had a family member around on my birthday.  Yeah.  15 years.  Now if they’d only move down, we wouldn’t have this problem!

I’ve never been accused of being particularly punctual.  I don’t really like being late, and yet I tend to manage it anyway.  So, I’ve rolled out a new plan.  Leave 10 minutes early.  Yep, I determine how much time I need to get somewhere on time, then tack on ten minutes.  I just bring a book along, so if I end up early (perish the thought!), I just grab some quick reading time.

It works.  I’m keepin’ it.

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Book mini-review!  I recently finished reading 50 Physics Ideas You Really Need to Know, by Joanne Baker.  The book is about 200 pages, which makes basically four pages per idea, and that’s just the right number of pages and the right amount of information to keep it interesting without going into overload.  Except the chapter on Quantum Mechanics.  There’s just little that can be done to make that interesting.

But if you’ve ever been interested to find out just a little about the Theory of Relativity or Nuclear Fission and Fusion, you’d get a lot out of this book.  That is, you’d get a little about a lot.  I used it for a bedtime book, because I knew I could read four pages and be done with a chapter.  I’ll admit I kept falling asleep while trying to read the Quantum chapter, but it was midnight, so it may have been more a function of my weariness than the content of the chapter.  Or maybe not.

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I sang with the choir at church on Sunday, a decision which garnered me much ridicule from my coworkers (it happens when you leave your choir music out on a lab bench).  Anyway…between services, one of the other men went outside and got rained on.  Big time.  He came back in completely drenched.

So, as we took our places on the risers, I saw that he had failed to rid himself of all the water droplets on his shoulders and back.  I proceeded to swipe them away for him.  What a nice guy, eh?  Yeah, it was the wrong guy.  And those were not water drops.  They were dandruff.  The guy took it with good humor, but I was a bit red in the face.  Trying to be nice, but ending up in a bad Selsun Blue commercial.  That’s me.

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As someone who runs three times a week, I find it irritating that my entire running outfit doesn’t go in the same laundry-sorting-hamper.  Specifically, I don’t like that my socks are white and the rest of my outfit is composed of darks.  It’s not an aesthetic thing, because I’m not really that metro (although I do groom my eyebrows somewhat to appease the Fair Elaine).  It’s just a laundry thing.  So, I was elated to find at my local Costco warehouse…drum roll…black socks.  Specifically, the same model of Champion Athletic Socks I currently use, but instead of white, they’re black.  Awesome.  The only gripe I have is that they’re supposed to fit sizes six through twelve.  Which basically means nine and a half.  On my size twelves, they’re a bit snug.  Maybe there’s another size.

24-Oct-2008

EMPLOYEE COMMUNICATIONS

Dear Valued Employee,

Perhaps you’ve noticed that our high-tech yet unreliable automatic paper towel dispensers have been even less reliable lately.  Please do not assume this is accidental.  We at Corporate found that employees have simply been relying too much on paper towels for their hand-drying needs.

As a result, Corporate has mandated that the towel dispensers only dispense lengths of 1.5 to 3.5 inches.  While this may not seem adequate for completely drying your hands, we think you will find that things will go just fine for you if you just try to dry smarter, not harder.

In addition, the towel dispensers will be calibrated over the next few weeks to both maximize cost savings and minimize environmental impact.  Part of the calibration process will include installation of biometric scanners which will prevent employees from using more towels than their allotted quota.

Employees will be asked to visit Badge & Key to submit fingerprints and retina scans for the biometric scanners.  These scanners will then be able to identify individual employees and make a determination of whether to dispense a towel.  Employees over their quota will be denied a towel, and there will be a limit of one towel per use.

Should you find that the petite towels are not sufficient for your drying purposes, we encourage you to get creative with alternative drying methods.  You may wish to wear absorbant clothing in order to provide yourself with a backup for a little extra drying, or in case you go over your limit.

Found wet and crumpled up next to the sink in the vending/refrigerator space by O. Handwasher.

Folks, I actually got a Suggest a Topic, and I’m following through on it.  The topic is contentment, and the suggestion came from my wife’s mother’s brother’s daughter.  Otherwise known as Cousin H (not her real name, but part of it).  I’ve been sitting on this topic for a couple of weeks, because I knew there was a good verse in Hebrews, so I wouldn’t even have to divert from my Bible Read-Through schedule.  Nice.

I must really know the Bible if I knew about one little verse on contentment in Hebrews…or could it be that Ethan had that particular memory verse in Awana last year?  So really, it’s just that I have a decent memory.  My mom always told me to apply it to Scripture…

And what is the verse of which I speak?

This verse is on the topic of contentment, but only really insofar as contentment means happiness with those things we possess.  Of course, contentment is a much larger subject (and there’s no way I’m covering it all right now).

I did a quick NETBible search on content and came up mostly with verses about contention.  Interesting, given that lack of contentment can easily lead to contention.  The other verses (the ones I was actually looking for) broadened the topic somewhat.  My favorite is from Paul:

I’m not sure what Paul’s definition of abundance is, but I’m betting it’s somewhere to the south of the typical American lifestyle. And yet we’re not content with it. Why is that? Why can’t we be content (or even happy) with our circumstances?

Dennis Prager, in his fine book Happiness is a Serious Problem, points out that in searching for happiness (which is highly compatible with contentment), we battle our nature:

We are completely satisfied with nothing.

The reason is human nature.  It is insatiable-and that is why no single obstacle to happiness is greater than human nature.  Whatever our nature desires-love, sex, money, attention, pleasure, food, security-cannot be supplied in sufficient quantities to satisfy it completely.

Pay attention to the order of words first spoken by a child, and you will probably notice what I did with my youngest.  His first word was Mama.  Then came Dada.  And his third word was more.  These words of a baby accurately represent our deepest urges-first for love and security and then for more-of everything.

Solomon would seem to agree:

I actually thought that a particular Veggie Tales was very insightful, when Bob the Tomato asked Larry the Cucumber how much stuff he needed to be happy.  Larry responded, “I dunno.  How much stuff can I have?”

Larry’s answer brings up a good point Steve Gregg makes in his lecture titled “The Grace of Contentment” (available free-of-charge from digitalministries.us).  He pointed out that in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve had access to the entire garden and all of its trees and plants, with the exception of one tree.  When the serpent came to deceive Eve, his approach was interesting.  He didn’t say, “Did God really say you could eat fruit from any of these trees except that one?”, which focused on the generosity of God in providing so much.  Instead, he focused his attack toward pointing out the negative.  “Did God really say you couldn’t eat of any of these trees?”

The serpent knew that to get Eve to fall, he first needed to reduce her contentment.  He focused her on thinking on what God had forbidden rather than what He had provided (which is a really common mistake non-religious folks make when assessing Christian beliefs, focusing on the “don’ts”).

The story of Job has a tie-in here, too.  After Job’s great wealth was destroyed, after his possessions were obliterated and all his children killed, his wife despaired and told him to do the same.  And this even after Job’s earlier statement of faith.

Does this mean we should just throw up our hands and decide to be okay with whatever situation we’re in?  I don’t think so.  Job was content, but not complacent. He sought answers as to why he should suffer. But he recognized that ultimately, both blessing and cursing come from God, and all that matters is our response to it.

Maybe you’re content right now in your finances, your home, your relationships, even your work. But I think it’s important for all of us to examine ourselves to find out if we’re content because of our circumstances or in spite of them.  Are we prepared to be content with less? With a downturn in a relationship or the economy?

I’m a fairly naturally content person. I don’t get impatient with many things except other drivers. But it’s really easy for me to slip from contentment into complacency. There are deficiencies in my life that need work, and it’s wrong for me to, in the name of contentment, not work on them. In fact, I think many of the deficiencies arose due to complacency. I can’t say, “Well, I got myself into this situation, so I guess I’ll just have to settle in and hope it improves.” No, I need to determine if there’s something I can do to improve the situation, all the while not allowing the current state of things to rob me of joy/happiness/contentment.

Well, I’ve managed to ramble a thousand words or so about this. Any thoughts? Are you content? Complacent? Any other verses or wisdom you’d like to share? Don’t let me monopolize my own blog here…

Well, those of you who regularly read my stuff must have expected this day:  I’ve been published.  In The Hillsboro Library News.  I know.  Totally.  I’ll pardon you as you stagger back in wonder.

Published!

I get bonus points for having a sentence fragment with borderline grammar published. How’d this happen?  Well, it’s about the Hillsboro Library’s Summer Reading Program.  Basically, you fill out a little sheet of paper with the Author and Title of a book you finish, then submit a short review of it (there are four lines on the 3″x3″ paper for the review).  The library actually called me to get permission to use my reviews.  I told them to use whatever they wanted.

When I told my wife they’d published my review, she was expecting something longer than a sentence fragment.  I guess I hadn’t adequately described the size of the work…

I make a New Year’s Resolution basically every year to submit something for publication.  Does this count?

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Congrats to the Tampa Bay Rays.  Now they get to take on the Phillies in the World Series.  I’m pulling for the Phils, but it’s hard not to root for a team that beat out the Yanks and Red Sox.  I’m really just hoping for a seven game series.

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Happy Birthday to The Fair Elaine.  You can head over to her blog and extend fond wishes if you’d like.  She’s now as old as I am, at least for the next 27 days.  But who’s counting?

Perhaps you’d expect to see this announcement over at the Handwasher Blog, but Mr. Handwasher and I agreed that if less is more, imagine how much more more could be!  So, you may see this in two places.  The announcement?  October 15th.  Save the date.  It’s Global Handwashing Day!!!

Now, I realize that the “holiday” is meant to bring awareness and improved cleansing of hands around the world, particularly in developing nations and places where infectious disease is more of a threat than here in the good-old-U.S.  But I think it’s a great time to encourage all the fake-hand-washers you know to make some sort of attempt at actual hygiene.

Don’t think you know any fakers?  You do.  Just pick ten random men that you know.  Eight or nine of them are fakers.  I’m totally going to make a sign to post on the mirror in my work restroom.  I’ll post (er, I mean, Mr. Handwasher will post) a picture of it on the Handwasher Blog.

Oh…linkage.  Check out the Global Handwashing Day website.

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Just a random thing about me…I don’t like shoes.  I feel they have extremely limited utility.  I like my Birkenstocks, but mostly even then because I can easily kick them off while at my desk.  I nearly always buy shoes with no laces so I can slip them off whenever I feel like it…which is most of the time.

However, I have a pair of Steve Maddens from Famous Footwear that I rarely take off even when I could.  I actually like a pair of shoes!!!

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As much as I harp on football, I actually do enjoy football highlights.  I just don’t like that Sportscenter can always find a way to lead with football even when it’s not football season.  Yesterday, Ethan and I turned on Fox to watch the NLCS and caught the last few minutes of the Cowboys-Cardinals game.  Ending it in overtime on a blocked punt touchdown was awesome.  And the Cowboys lost, which always brings a smile to my face.

There were actually two blocked punts on Sunday.  Cool.  There was a cool double reverse pass thingy…nice.  I’m a sucker for trick plays.  Baseball’s still better, but I can appreciate the good parts of football, even if the over-the-top celebrations for well-timed tackles bother me.

And I’ve realized that Ethan’s sports education is a bit one-sided.  He knows that you can take first base if the catcher drops strike three and first base is open, but he had no idea what a touchdown was.  He thinks football is a game we play out in the greenspace, where I kick the ball, then let him get to it, pick him up, and shake him upside down until he drops it.  At some point maybe I’ll fill in some of the blanks for him.  I don’t want him to be one of those guys who’s nervous to go to a Super Bowl party because he’s afraid the other guys will find out he doesn’t know anything about the game.

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While The Fair Elaine was out of town, I decided to cook.  I made awesome Lentil Soup.  Here’s the recipe if you’re interested.  It’s vegan and delicious.  Oh, and it was an alteration of a recipe from the Veganomicon.

2 cups lentils (Any of the brown/green/black variety should work.  Pink or yellow not so much)
8 cups vegetable broth (I used Imagine Foods’ “No Chicken Broth”)
4 carrots
4 stalks celery
1 small/medium onion
4 Yukon gold potatoes
4 cloves garlic (feel free to adjust to taste)
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp tarragon
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp paprika
salt and pepper to taste

Finely dice the onion.  Mince the garlic.  Chop the carrots and celery into 1/4″ slices.  Cut potatoes into chunks of whatever size you wish.

In a large pot (I used cast iron), saute the veggies in the olive oil until the onions start to color.  Maybe 5-10 minutes.

Add the spices, vegetable broth, and lentils.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and cover.  Simmer 45 minutes or until lentils are tender.

Serve with whole grain bread.  Yum!

BTW, I also added some leeks because I had them.  But I don’t think they’d make or break the recipe.  Oh, and Ethan loved the soup.  He even ate leftovers the next day.

I’m fairly certain my alarm went off at 6:30 this morning.  I, however, went on sleeping.  I guess I thought it was Sunday.  Didn’t get in to work until about 10am.  Nice.

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I spend a good deal of time reading.  When I commented some time ago about the fact that I average about a book per week (my currently reading and recently finished lists are somewhere over on the right side of this page), someone asked me, “How much time do you spend reading every day?”  I had no reply.  Reading is such a part of my day that I generally don’t pay much attention to how much I do it.  So I’ve started taking note.  Last Wednesday, I decided to pay attention.  The breakdown was this:

Before work:

• 15 minutes in Jeremiah (5 chapters)
• 10 minutes in The Origin and History of the Doctrine of Endless Punishment (finished a chapter)

At work:

• 20 minutes in The Elements of Style (at a Blood drive - more on that later - while a needle hung out of my arm - and on the walk to it and back - yes, I read while walking)
• 10 minutes in The Elements of Style (while eating lunch - finally finished the book)

Back home:

• 10 minutes in 50 Physics Ideas You Really Need to Know (probably would’ve read more, but we stayed up late watching John Adams on DVD - more on that later)

That only adds up to 65 minutes, which seems a bit low to me.  If I hadn’t finished Style, and I’d had something more engrossing than Origin (don’t get me wrong, it’s really good in its way!), I might have read for another half-hour or so.  I figure I tend toward 90 minutes during the week, maybe 30 minutes on the weekend.  Is that a lot?

I seriously doubt I’ve gone a whole day without reading something in a very, very long time.

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Speaking of Blood Drives, have you donated lately?  Not to brag or anything, but my blood is very popular (since I’m O+, anybody with the RH factor can use mine).  They basically call me every eight weeks, and I’m in the habit of donating.  I have no great love of needles, but I have great veins and they’ve only missed mine three times in my 39 donations (Wednesday being #3).  I’m one pint away from my fifth gallon, and I’m unreasonably excited about reaching that milestone.

Seriously, it’s really not that bad, even if you’re averse to needles.  It’s a good thing to do, and they give you cookies!  Plus, how often do you consider questions like “Have you ever had Chagas’ Disease?” or “In the past eight weeks, have you donated a double unit of red blood cells on an apheresis machine?” (Yes, I have that question memorized.  It’s on my long list of “No” responses.)

I like shaming my coworkers after donating, with my nice little arm wrap and the beautiful iodine stain on my arm.  I go around telling them that I had some ill humors drained.  And they don’t even use leeches anymore!

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I love TV on DVD.  I got John Adams from the library, and it’s well worth the overdue fee I’ll be paying for it.  The performances are uniformly brilliant, and it’s just one of those shows that makes you want to read.  At least, it makes me want to read more about that period.  Since I haven’t had a U.S. History course since 10th grade (yeah…1989), it’s something I’d like to become more familiar with.  Look for my book list to include some early American history books next year.

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Ethan and I are enjoying the MLB Playoffs right now.  Ethan seems to think that since the Rays were terrible last year and yet really good this year, and since the Mariners were terrible this year…(ah, the hopes of a young lad)

I don’t want to burst his bubble.  The Mariner could be substantially better next year if the organization starts paying attention to what the USSMariner guys say.

Oh, and I can’t believe the Cubs lost.  That, my friends, is why they play the game.

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Pushing Daisies is just a complete delight.  When I first heard about the show (long before it came out), I figured it would be morbid and gothic, for some reason.  It’s more like the Wizard of Oz.  Hmm.  I was going to go with a couple more comparisons here, but none of them really work.  Because Daisies is just different.  The show totally does not work without the narrator, Jim Dale, who should get an Emmy.

The cast is awesome, and what’s not to love about characters named Ned, Chuck (female), Olive Snook, and Emerson Cod?  I have a man crush on Emerson, if for nothing else, his tirade in last week’s episode about men not being allowed to cry.  The finger wag made the whole thing.

Oh, hey, I just found out what the show is…it’s a forensic fairy-tale.  That’s perfect.  Found it on Wikipedia, and I believe it because I found it online.

My favorite line from the narrator?  Sorry, slight bad wordage: “Harold Hundin was, indeed, a damn polygamist.”  It was funny when Emerson said it; funnier when done in Jim Dale’s whimsical voiceover.

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I still have more things about which to muse.  I guess I should save them for next week since I’m now at nearly 900 words.

I’m not what you’d call a Reality TV junkie.  But I’m not a Reality-Hater either.  I enjoy Survivor sometimes, American Idol occasionally (although there’s less and less to enjoy every year), So You Think You Can Dance due to its superiority, and The Amazing Race immensely.  It’s on again, and it’s still just incredibly awesome.  Why is it awesome?  Well, because, unlike Survivor, it’s a show I’d actually like to be on.  Who wouldn’t want to race around the world for a million bucks?

And I love watching the teams melt down after weeks of constant stress.  My favorite team thus far is one where the guy (it’s a couple) keeps talking about how he just wants to be held, and how it bothers him that the girl keeps talking other teams.  They’re hilariously strange.

Unfortunately, the Oregon Connection (beekeepers who look like they just escaped Woodstock) were the first team to go.  Bummer.

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Robert Crais writes good crime fiction.  Just lettin’ you know.  I’m reading Chasing Darkness, and it’s just incredibly readable and engrossing.  Some language, and the subject matter is crime, so be forewarned.  But if you’re into private-detective-type-stuff, Crais is a good choice.

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I’ve been having a great time bike-commuting to work.  But evidently I’m just too fat, and one of my spokes is now broken.  So I must get it fixed.  Bummer, that.

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My Subbatical has ended.  Eight weeks flew by, and the guy I was covering for is now back.  Fortunately, he doesn’t really want to take back over the stuff he handed off, so I get to keep doing his job.  Which is okay as jobs go.

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The baseball season is over.  Unless you’re a Twins or White Sox fan.  The awesome thing is, Twins fans still have a reason to watch baseball, and the Twins have already played their 162 games.  But the White Sox have only played 161, and they have one fewer win than the Twins (which means, Jill, that they’re a half-game back).  Since they’re both in the A.L. Central, the Sox have to play a makeup game today (making up a rainout).  If they win, they tie the Twins for the Central Title.  And then they’ll have to play a one-game-playoff to decide who wins the division.  But if they lose the game today, the Twins take the division without the playoff.  Clear?

Ethan was surprisingly unbummed about the Mariners’ season being over.  He just said, “now we’ll have to watch the Cubs and the Dodgers and the Angels.”  Yeah, he knew those three teams were in the postseason, just off the top of his head.  That’s my boy!

A while back, a friend told me about a Youtube showing how a Traffic Shockwave is created. Have you ever been driving along, minding your business, and then traffic suddenly comes to a standstill? You keep driving, hoping to see some reason for the logjam. And what do you see? Nuthin’. Why? Well, who knows why…but this video shows it actually happening:

Cool, huh?  So basically, this stuff happens because people don’t know how to hold their position in traffic.

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I’ve set up a new page for Submissions.  Obviously, I love to write, but I’m occasionally short on topics or content.  Please don’t let this happen.  I’m looking for suggestions for Too Funny Tuesdays, Theology Thursdays, and Foney Fridays.  I’ll even take just random web-gleanings upon which I might Muse on a Monday.  Just go over to the Suggest a Topic link (top-right) and fire away (or click the link in this sentence if you’re really lazy).

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In the course of my workday, I read a lot of specifications and datasheets (and so infected with them is my mind that I’ve asked The Fair Elaine about them in my sleep).  You know your day is off to a good start when you get a review copy of a new datasheet sent out specifically to help you get your work done and you end up sending back an email with this line in it:

“In short, my feedback is that I don’t find that this datasheet helps me complete my work in any way.”

Yeah, it’s gonna be a good day.

Ethan got his first Rubber Band Kill last Wednesday.  I’m extremely proud.  He stood on his bed, aimed carefully, and destroyed a spider.  It was a perfect shot (not an easy one, either…probably four feet).  It’s our version of hunting.  True, we basically do it for sport, but we don’t take trophies.  My collection of taxidermized flies, mosquitoes, spiders, and skeeter-eaters would be impressive, but I just always felt that kind of thing was kinda tacky.

I’m a great shot with a rubber band myself, but I don’t think I was as good as Ethan at his age.  I’m announcing it right now…Ethan for Gold Medal in Olympic Rubber Band Marksmanship in 2016!!!

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Perhaps you’re worried about terrorism, or maybe even Climate Change (snicker…sorry, can’t help it).  But I’m telling you right now that we face an even more dangerous danger…the Apostrolypse.  Perhaps you’ve never heard of such a thing.  What is it?  It’s the end of the world, brought on by the misuse of apostrophes.  Oh, I mean apostrophe’s.  If you don’t get it, you’ll want to do some reading.

Why do I think we’re in danger?  Elaine and I went to the Murray Hill Café the other day (just for dessert) and found this gem on the menu:

Lindsay’s’ Dessert of the Day

At least she didn’t go with “Desert,” which one encounters more than one might expect.

I didn’t find a dessert menu online, which was disappointing.  I did happen to look at the dinner menu and found a few things I’d like to try.  But I’m going to have to say something about that Dessert item.

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I’ve done it.  My webhost sent me a coupon for a free domain hosting package, and I set up my Restroom Blog.  There, I’ll start doing exploratory posts on the subject of the Restroom, in pursuit of my dream of publishing a book my mother would so NOT approve of.  If you’d like to help out with my research, head over there and keep an eye out for questions, surveys, and general mayhem.

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And now we’re heading for the Coast.  Buh-bye.