Sunrise, Sunset

"We fear change." - Garth Algar, Wayne's World.

We've been in a small group Bible study through our church for the past three years. It was a very serendipitous series of events that lead us to the group that we ended up attending. I won't bore you with all of the details, but suffice it to say that we were very happy with the group. Up to that point, we really hadn't connected with people in town and were happy to even have people that we could name that I didn't work with. Very quickly, we were doing social events outside of the weekly small group: going out to eat, watching sporting events, play dates for the kids, etc. However, it is looking as though this chapter in our lives has come to a close.

We always knew that our group would most likely be temporary. In fact, it was stated as such at the beginning. We would stay together for a few years and then we'd branch out into other groups. After all, our church had just started trying to get people in to small groups and there was a strong need for more group leaders. That was the plan and we knew it from the onset. That doesn't mean that I have to like it, though.

It's not as though our group remained the same through all three years. One couple that was at the initial meeting decided that the group wasn't for them, so we didn't see them the next week. Over the three years, we added two new couples, a total of six new kids, and one more baby sitter. We've seen each other through ups and downs in our personal lives. We've spent more time talking about the collective labors and births than the time that was spent actually in labor and childbirth. We've laughed together, cried together, prayed together, and eaten a lot of desserts together. Now the time has finally come where it's time to branch out. It's time to multiply our groups so that others can be involved in small groups as well. So that they can have the closeness and the friendship. I'm just not sure if I'm ready for it to end.

I've used Garth's line from Wayne's World many times over the years because it is a quote with which I strongly identify. I've always been resistant to change. I think it has something to do with my upbringing. I lived in the same house for nearly the first 19 years of my life. In that time, I attended the same church, went to the same school with essentially the same classmates and had the same haircut. I had the same girlfriend all through high school along with the same best friend. Hopefully, that helps explain my aversion to having anything in my life change.

Again, I point out that I completely acknowledge the need for the group to split. We need to give others the opportunity to join small groups so that, as a church, we can have sustainable, personal growth in our faith. We need to make sure that people feel welcomed and "plugged in" at the church.

I'm just saying that I'm really going to miss that guaranteed time with some of my closest friends.

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How Many Times Have I Been Fooled?

I know that at this portion of my life, after everything I've seen, I shouldn't be allowed to get my hopes up. I've seen the same sort of results every single time, but yet I keep hoping. Hoping that I'll see the years bear fruit, but the same old conclusion keeps slapping me in the face. There's an old saying that insanity can be defined as repeatedly doing the same thing and expecting to get different results. Well, that's been me for the past few years, and tonight it completely slapped me in the face. That's right, it was the night of the NBA draft lottery. I think that it's been fairly evident that I'm a fan of most of the Minnesota pro sports teams. Along with that has come a lot of heartache. It might not be on the level of Philadelphia sports' problems, but there's still a rather impressive list. Consider:

• Going to and losing four Super Bowls. Sure, I wasn't alive during any of them, but it's still my heritage.
• Trading away a king's ransom for Hershel Walker with Denny proudly proclaiming that they've just won the Super Bowl because they acquired the missing piece. The problem with that quote was that it was actually taken from the Dallas press release.
• Drafting Ndi Ebi over Josh Howard. Yes, Howard has had some reported problems lately, but at least he's actually a player in the league. Ebi spent three years being "injured" and then was done.
• Isaiah "J.R." Rider. That's all I have to say about that.
• The Wolves never improving their draft position in the lottery.
• Drafting NBA Rookie of the Year, Brandon Roy...and then trading him away.
• Joe Smith.

These are just the examples that immediately spring to mind. I could go on for quite a while. The point being that I was looking to tonight as being a potential turning point for a franchise that needed a bit of luck. They needed the ball to bounce their way just for once. They have a very good player in Al Jefferson who could be a cornerstone in the low block for years to come, but he needed some help. Help in the form Derrick Rose to run the pick and roll, give perfect passes for easy finishes and to receive the outlet pass to start the fast break. Help in the form of Michael Beasley to share the rebounding chores, make the opponent pay for a double team and provide some much-needed help on defense. Alas, these scenarios, as it stands now, appear unlikely to occur. You see, the Wolves, true to their history, stayed put. They had the third-worst record in the league at the conclusion of the season, and they will have the third overall pick in the NBA draft. All of this means that among my fellow Wolves fans the debate will start about who is worthy of the 3rd pick that will also help the team. One of the largest problems that I see in this draft is the fact that many of the players mentioned for the number three pick have skill sets that are very similar to two players the Wolves already have on their roster in Randy Foye and Rashaad McCants. O.J. Mayo, Erik Gordon, and Jerryd Bayless are all, essentially, mid-sized (6' 3"-6' 4") scoring guards who might have to be forced into a hybrid point guard role in the NBA. That pretty much describes Foye and McCants. A back court of one of those players and Foye or McCants would most likely be a disaster. You can't teach size, right? That's what we hear all the time about why a general manager selected a big man over a more talented but shorter player. However, it rarely holds true. If the big isn't athletic or have solid skills already, they aren't worth the risk. The possibility of selecting Brook Lopez or Kevin Love scares me right now because I'm not sure how well their games will translate to the next level. DeAndre Jordan is intriguing, but has the "motivation problem" label. All of these lingering problems is why I so desperately wanted one of the top two picks. I would actually have preferred the second pick. Let the team in the first position agonize over who to select. Just hand in the card for the other guy after they make their pick. But, no, the Wolves get the third pick. Sure, something strange could happen and Miami or Chicago will over think things and pass on Rose or Beasley so they fall in to the Wolves' lap. That's essentially what happened for the Vikings with Adrian Peterson, so it's not completely unprecedented. What's the likely-hood of that happening, though? I was talking with my brother-in-law about the lottery results and he responded to my lament about picking third with the following: "The one thing I'll say is that there will be 3 stars coming out of this draft. We know who two of them will be, but the question is who will be the third." My current pessimistic response? "We just know that it won't be whoever the Wolves pick."

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I Gotta Go Potty!

Travel with my family continues to get more interesting. Today was the first day that we went on a trip since starting to potty train Doodle. The current state is that he's in his normal underwear when we're home (his choice of Spider-Man, Diego or Transformers). If we're going to church or the store, he's in a pull up. For bed time, he's still in a diaper. Progressively, his pull ups have been dry. This also means that we've been making more trips to the rest rooms lately.

For the most part, this is OK. Anne will watch the other kids while Doodle and I head in to the restroom and take the largest stall available, and he goes potty. Then he covers his ears while the toilet flushes. Those things can be loud some times. If at all possible, he likes to wash his hands by himself. Usually, the sink isn't low enough for him, so I have to lift him up for the washing.

Today, we made sure that he went at home before we left and put a pull up on him. Then it was on the road. We were about half-way through the trip to Grandma's house when it started.

"I have to go potty."

"Well, you're wearing the pull up. You could just go in that." This was an unacceptable solution to the young man, and to a certain extent I can understand. Once you've had the sensation of not having a wet diaper for portions of the day, I can imagine that one would want to keep it that way.

Since it was almost time for supper anyway, we stopped at the nearest Unnamed Fast Food joint and took care of both outgoing and incoming business.

Of course, an hour later, we had to stop again for a bathroom break. I have a bad feeling that trips are going to take longer for a bit.

Really, he's doing a great job with it all, for the most part. It's just frustrating that that my schedule is being interrupted.

Of course, maybe that's being selfish.

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Holy Crap: My First Experience with DTV

A couple of months ago, I applied for a coupon (pronounced "coo-pon") on a website. For the next few weeks, I checked the mailbox every day and told Anne that if I got the coupon, I would be immediately rushing out to make a purchase that I hoped would change our lives. I'm talking about digital television. Actually, that doesn't do it justice.

Digital Television!

There. That's better.

You may or may not know that in February of 2009, the TV stations that we're used to seeing over the air and captured on our rabbit ears will be going away and replaced by a purely digital signal. This is a good thing. Just like digital technology on our cell phones, DTV promises clear reception because it's either a one or a zero. The receiver isn't having to figure out where along the entire wavelength the signal is at a given moment, it's either a one or a zero. You either have the signal or you don't. There's no fuzziness. No ghosting image. Great right?

Well, I finally received my coupon in the mail on Saturday. I of course rushed right out to purchase the Zenith digital converter that Consumer Reports recommended. It took me a couple of days to find the time to connect it, but I finally did it. Then I turned it on.

The setup couldn't have been easier. It ran through the channels to find the signals available. The basics were all there - ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC - and there were some extras that were pleasant surprises such as a couple of weather stations and about four different kinds of PBS. OK, I could have done without the PBS stations, but whatever.

My initial reaction was "Wow!" The picture was completely amazing. I don't have a high definition TV, but the image was crystal clear. I settled in and watched a bit of Letterman and a bit of Family Guy. I was happy.

Could it last? Of course not. Suddenly, some of the stations would go black and show a happy little bouncing sign to tell me that there was "no signal." Herein lies the problem with a digital source: The fact that if you don't have a signal, you really don't have a signal. Granted, I just have rabbit ears on the top of my TV and I'm sure the consistency could be smoothed out if I got an attic antenna or something . However, it's not like I live out in the country. I live right in a reasonably sized metropolitan area. I should have very good signal consistently. Maybe this will improve as we get closer to the full switch over, but it's mildly frustrating that it's not better now.

For more information, you can go to the US Government's site dedicated to digital TV.

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Here's How It Is: A Pluckytown Update

I know, I know. You don't even have to say anything. We've been horribly negligent in getting anything posted here. We've had good intentions at times, honest. I've even had a few starts at articles that were interrupted by life in general and then I forgot about them. Or at the very least, forgot where I was going with them. Weeks turned in to months and time, as it is want to do, moved in a mostly linear fashion forward. It's always annoyed my by doing that.

The other guys in the group at least have more excuse. Frederick and Gudy are in school still, so they have their jobs plus schoolwork to be doing. I just have to claim laziness, really.

Here's what we're going to do for you, though. I'm going to try and post more often, but it will be in a shorter, more informal manner. I'll still try to do the occasional longer article, but they will come as I have time and ambition. I have a few ideas that I want to do, but haven't gotten around to fully fleshing out.

Hopefully, you're willing to keep reading even after this long hiatus. Thanks for your patience. I love all three of you.

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Disappointment Unlimited

I love our local library. I've been able to catch up on quite a bit of comic book reading (Ultimate Spider-Man) and read some that I've always wanted to but never had the chance (Watchmen, V for Vendetta). I've also been able to watch a few shows that I wanted to see (Lost). I've also been a bit disappointed. I'm a really big believer in being truthful in advertising. If you say that your product does something, or is something, I would greatly prefer that your product does or is that thing. That's why I was mildly frustrated with the people who produced the show that I borrowed from the library: Justice League Unlimited.

I've always been more of a Marvel guy than a D.C. guy. I'm sure that it's partially because the first comic that I started buying on a regular basis was the Amazing Spider-Man. From there, I went on to the the Incredible Hulk, the Uncanny X-Men, and Wolverine, among others. It's only been in more recent years that I've started getting more of an appreciation for the "Distinguished Competition." Mainly in the form of liking to read Batman, but also reading some of the Superman, Flash, Green Lantern, and Justice League stories. When I saw a disk that was labeled "Justice League Unlimited, Season 1," I was excited to see the Justice League crew in cartoon form and able to see it from the beginning. Boy was I wrong.

The animation was in a style that we've come to expect from the WB/D.C. studios that started with the animated series for Batman. The voice work was top-notch. We had Kevin and Jason from the Wonder Years. We had Nathan Fillion, Adam Baldwin, and Gina Torres from Firefly. The characters were many and diverse. We had the heavy-hitters (Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern), the mystic (Dr. Fate, Zatana) and the lesser-known (Hawk, Dove) characters. The stories were interesting and mostly self-contained, but with an over-arching story that carried with it clues to where the show was heading. Unfortunately, that also included some information (or lack thereof) about from where the show had come.

You see, this wasn't what I would call a "pure" season one of the show. It had continuity that it had carried over from a previous show. There was some whole thing with Hawkgirl so that she was hanging out in some pocket dimension with Dr. Fate along with the fact that there seemed to be some unrequited love thing between her and Green Lantern. To top it all off, one of my favorite characters in the D.C. universe, the Flash, who is one of the major, flag-ship characters of the entire comics line along with being a founding member of the Justice League (Well, really, it was his predecessor, Barry Allen, who was one of the founding members, at least in the comics, but that's not important right now. Well, to you it's not important; to me it's a detail that they missed. Where was I? Oh, yeah: the Flash) doesn't even make a single appearance in the series besides the opening credits until the seventh episode of the series. How does this make sense?

So, to sum it all up: If you're looking for the Flash, expect to be disappointed until mid-way through the first season, and please don't mind the fact that they said it's a first season, but really it's not, and they don't completely explain the stuff that they figure you should already know because, after all, you watched the previous series that wasn't actually named Justice League Unlimited, right? I mean, why would you be watching this series if you didn't watch the first one? It's not like they said that this was the first season of a brand new series, right? Oh wait! They did. (Deep breath.)

My name is Jeff Kamp, and I approve this rant.

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Random Thoughts: Kutlass/Newsboys Edition

Recently, Anne and I went with some friends to see Kutlass and Newsboys in concert together, along with a third opening band whose name I have no desire to actually look up. I decided to do a random thoughts on the concert. I hope you enjoy.

• You know, I don't mind paying for parking when I'm able to get tickets for free. Have I mentioned that I like my employer?
• "Everybody remember where we parked."
• We find our seats and our group immediately segregates themselves by male and female. Welcome to the 21st century. You gotta love progress.
• The opening act is...interesting. Dude at the keyboard does a little "human beatbox" thing before doing a "power organ" thing. So, it seems like their musical influences are mid-'80s rap and ELO.
• And B.B. King.
• And Boxcar Willie.
• Kutlass was awesome!
• The guitarist for Kutlass likes doing this thing where he flips his guitar completely around his body by the strap. Kinda cool.
• I can just picture him practicing and someone comes up behind him, "Hey, dude, how's it..." *smack!* "..OW!"
• When did Billy Corgan become the lead singer of Newsboys?
• And when did he pick up the Australian accent?
• Thrumming bass? Check. Obnoxiously-bright light show? Check. Unable to discern any of the different parts of the music? Check. It's definitely a rock concert.
• I'm not sure why, but hearing the song "Something Beautiful" at 250 decibels seems to me to be a contradiction.
• "I could be wrong, sir, but I'm pretty sure your five-year-old son will have enough issues losing his hearing to his own music."
• And stop trying to hand the lead singer a box of Cap'n Crunch.
• Oh good. Another joke about how they're Australian.
• I don't know about you, but when I look at a platform that is raised ten feet in the air and is five feet in diameter while someone is frantically standing and drumming on it and say sarcastically to myself, "Oh yeah, that looks stable," I start to think that it's time to re-consider the gimmick.
• "If your ears aren't ringing, then I want my money back!" Don't worry, dude, I think you accomplished it.

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Trust Me, It's Broken

An epiphany is an interesting thing. It strikes you when you least expect it. For instance, my family and I had decided that we would go to a local eating establishment one day, and we were waiting to order when a thought suddenly struck me. It was very much like in the first Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book where someone has an idea to fix all the problems in the world. It would work. Everyone would get behind it, and then the world blew up. I had a very similar idea on a smaller scale. It wouldn't fix all of the problems in the world. Just one of the more disputed issues in the world of sports. Maybe that's why the world didn't blow up after I came up with the idea. At least, as far as I know the world didn't explode. I have an idea that would fix college football.

One of the biggest discussions every year is about the Bowl Championship Series in college football. Everyone except for the NCAA and the people directly involved in the bowl games hate the BCS. I've written about it being one of the biggest problems I have with college football. We end the year in a major sport where the champion may or may not be the best team in the nation. We're not sure because the teams that are out on the field for the championship are there because a computer decided that they're the best two teams in the nation, not necessarily because they've proven it on the field. Some have proposed that there be a four or eight game playoff at the end of the season. That doesn't appease the good old boy network that claims this would cause the regular season to be meaningless. I would say that the the BCS has caused the regular season to be virtually meaningless already considering that at the outset of the season, only ten teams have a legitimate shot at going to the national championship game. Why not make most of the season a tournament?

I started thinking down those lines after we had gotten our food, but I needed to flesh out the details a little bit. For one thing, I didn't know how many teams there are in division one football. When I don't know the answer to a question like that, I know what I need to do: Call Gudy. One of the benefits of being friends with a guy like Gudy is the fact that if I don't know the answer to a sports questions, most likely he does. I quickly called him from the cell phone. Here's a transcript of our conversation.

Gudy: "Hello?"

Me: "Hey. How many teams are there in division 1A college football?"

Gudy (without hesitation): "119."

Me: "How many games are in the average team's season?"

Gudy: "11 or 12."

Me: "Thanks. I'll talk to you later." Click.

So now I had all the information I needed. Just the numbers. Here's the details.

• The season would start with each team playing five games. They can schedule these games however they'd like. The could play against conference teams. They could play traditional rivals. This would allow us to still see the match-ups we care about every year: USC v. Notre Dame, Florida State v. Clemson, University of Minnesota v. North Dakota State University, Michigan v. Appalachians State. You know, all the traditional, bad-blood rivalries.
• At the end of those five games, we make use of the BCS computers to rank the teams. Not just the top 25, however. We go from one to 119 with the top nine teams having a first week bye.
• For the remaining seven weeks, the teams play out the bracket.
• If a team loses, they drop down into the consolation round. That's essentially what happens today anyway when you consider that it only takes one loss to drop you out of contention.
• For the consolation group, the top 30 teams participate in the bowls. That'll keep the good old boys happy.
• The two left standing at the end play for the national championship. Last one standing gets the crown.

So, there you go. The one downside of this plan is that the conferences become, for all intents and purposes, irrelevant. Unless you do something where, based on the final standings, the conferences get some sort of bonus for how their teams finished. The large advantages are nearly self-evident. Everyone, top to bottom, has a chance to win the championship and not just the teams that are fortunate enough to be in the top 15 at the beginning of the season. The bowl games are all still in play. In fact, you can preserve the rotating national championship locations that we have today between the Rose Bowl, the Orange Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl, and the Sugar Bowl. The biggest thing for me is the fact that the champion is decided on the field and not by a computer. It's also all done without adding any games to the schedule, which is another thing people have against a playoff system. To me, this fixes things, whether or not you wish to believe that it's currently broken.

P.S. It is currently broken.

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Yet Another Patriots Article

I am an avid reader of ESPN's Sports Guy, Bill Simmons. Anything that he puts up, I try to read. He's interesting; sometimes insightful; an unabashed fan of the Patriots, Red Sox, and Celtics; and more often than not, right on with his opinions. However, sometimes that fan-dom can cloud his judgment. Such is the case with his latest article about the Patriots filming scandal. I think we can all agree that there's been a lot to talk about in the world of professional football lately besides what happened in week one of the NFL season with the cameraman from the Patriots being caught filming the Jets coaching staff. I think we can also agree that much has been said and written about the penalty that Commissioner Goodell handed down to the New England Patriots this past week. The penalty was given after the Patriots had video taped the New York Jets, which was in clear violation of the rule after all teams were warned by the NFL front office against doing exactly that. Everyone has been weighing in with their opinion about the harshness or leniency of those penalties. Here's what I think should have been done immediately by the office of the commissioner: absolutely nothing.

I'll explain that in a moment. First, though, I'd like to point out some things that I agree with Bill's (do you mind if I call you Bill?) article and point out some issues that I have with it.

...NBC was too determined to blow out CameraGate. Before the game, Andrea Kramer reported [Charger's Coach Norv] Turner was taking precautions from a secrecy standpoint, refusing to allow any Patriots personnel into his locker room and even handing his players the first 15 plays Sunday morning instead of Saturday night...Kramer was treating the topic so seriously and breathlessly, you would have thought she was standing in Iraq with missiles going off behind her.

Completely agree. This has been a problem with how network TV handles sports for quite some time. They decide on one or two "story-lines" to follow throughout the game and they just...can't...let...go. This is one of the reasons why John Madden and every other announcer doing a Packers' game spend so much time gushing over Brett Favre. Even if he's having a horrible game, all we can hear about is how he's "having fun out there" and is "a gunslinger." There doesn't seem to be the talent or the producers willing to let the game dictate the line of conversation in the booth. It almost seems like they have a script to read before going on the air. But that couldn't happen, could it?

Look, I know everyone now assumes the Patriots have been cheating for the past six years, even though they hadn't been penalized even once before last weekend; even though no coach or player has left New England since 2002 and blown the whistle on them; and even though the New England players were fired up Sunday night, partly because everyone has been so eager to stick an asterisk next to everything that's happened from 2001-2007.

I agree that there's a bit of a gleam in the eyes of the media and some of the sports-loving public because of the "how the mighty have fallen" syndrome. It's much the same reason why many people enjoy to watch the Yankees, Lakers, and Cowboys struggle. We enjoy success stories in America. We just don't like to see one person/team/group dominate for too long. Success is all well and good, but we like to see fresh faces at the top of the mountain, too. It's just human nature.

Our "evidence" that there may have been a prolonged pattern of cheating last week came from "unnamed sources" and players who had already lost big games to the Patriots and seemed excited to have an excuse after all these years...If this pattern of inappropriate behavior had been happening for six years, wouldn't they have been caught before Sept. 9, 2007?

Um...Bill? They were. In fact, I direct you to your employer's website to read an article almost completely contradicting your statements.

"It's not their first time," a member of the [NFL's competition] committee, who did not wish to be identified, said.

Granted, it's an "unnamed" source, but it's an unnamed source that has to be a team executive or coach, since that is who is on the committee. From the same article (emphasis mine):

Green Bay Packers president Bob Harlan confirmed a similar incident that occurred when the Patriots played at Lambeau Field last Nov. 19. The same cameraman who was questioned by NFL security on Sunday was also the one whom the Packers removed from the sideline and escorted from the field during their 2006 game, according to Packers security official Doug Collins. "From what I can remember, he had quite a fit when we took him out," Harlan said. "We had gotten word before the game that they [the Patriots] did this sort of thing, so we were looking for it."

Hardly an unnamed source with this incident. None of this matters, though. They were caught after the entire league had been specifically warned against employing any sort of recording device in the stadium.

Simmons again:

They got caught, they paid the price. Like every other Pats fan, I hate what happened and continue to be disappointed that our coach pulled a Nixon on us. I don't know how many times I can write this. They are the villains of the NFL. The Belichick era has been tainted.

On to the punishment. Why do I think that Goodell should not have given out any public punishment when so many have been screaming that the punishment should have been more harsh, including adding a suspension of Belichick? Simple: because it's Belichick. The problem with the punishment as it currently stands - $500,000 fine for Belichick, $250,000 fine for the Patriots, loss of a first round pick if they make the playoffs, a second and a third if they don't - is that there is no immediate impact on the season in which the problem occurred. In fact, I find it interesting that all of this happened in a season that some had regarded as Belichick's swan song in New England. I wonder if the extension that he just signed was, to a certain extent, the owner of the Patriots saying, "Clean up your own mess" since the loss of draft picks is normally so crippling for a franchise. See also: The Minnesota Timberwolves and Smith, Joe. However, look deeper. If they lose the first-round draft pick, which most people expect since they should be in the playoffs, they have another one due to a trade with the San Francisco 49ers, which is likely to be higher in the round than their own pick anyway. Is it a loss? Sure, but not one from which the team can't recover. In fact, what all this melodrama surrounding the Patriots has effectively done is provide the team with the dreaded "us against them" motivator. Do you think Belichick isn't going to take advantage of that? Look at the way they effectively dismantled a very talented (but poorly-led) Chargers team. Don't you suppose that Belichick went into the locker room before the game and talked about how the world wanted to see them crumble and fall under the weight of the current scrutiny? He's a master of the us against them mentality. Of course he used it.

Here's how I think it should have been handled. Goodell should not have announced any draft pick removal, fines, suspensions or anything until after the season was over. During the season, he would bring up how fantastic an organization the Patriots are. They've won three Super Bowls this decade. They're the modern dynasty. They're never strapped for salary cap, talent, or intelligence. In fact, he should bring up positive notes about the Patriots even when they're not involved in the line of questioning. "Yes, what Terrell Owens said was a bit over the top. There may be some fines coming for him in the near future. I wish he could be more like Randy Moss has been since he's gone to the Patriots. Moss has been the perfect citizen in New England. I suppose it's being under the influence of such a classy organization from top to bottom. I wish all of our teams could be coached and run more like New England."

Would these sort of talking points hurt the commissioner's hard-line image? Of course. At least, until he handed out the penalties at the end of the year. But it would eat Belichick that he has such a prominent and vocal proponent in Goodell. It would make it that much harder to pull the world is against us bit. Might it cause them some wins? Maybe, maybe not, but it'd be fun to watch if you were in on the "punishment."

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They Grow Up So Quickly

My daughter, Punkin, took another step in her journey towards becoming a young woman. It, of course, brought back memories of changing her diaper, late-night feedings, running full-bore down the hallway when she should be asleep. Ah, the memories. This is normally where a sentimental musical number would be placed. Pretty soon she'll be moving out of the house and finding a husband. The continuing journey was evident today once again. My daughter played Super Mario Bros.

While visiting Anne's folks, her mom mentioned that Punkin, now five, was getting to be a little too big for the baby toys that she had in the bedroom for the kids to play with. She made the suggestion that we should maybe break out the old Super Nintendo and see if she'd like to do that. I was all for it. After all, I really enjoy video games and quite often long for the simpler days where the controllers don't have 20 different buttons. They make me feel old and ineffectual. Super Nintendo may not be as simple as the original Nintendo that I had growing up, but it's simple enough for me. Besides which, I was able to get quite a bit of Super Nintendo time in at friends' homes when I was growing up. Then we fired it up.

It's amazing to me how quickly a little girl who has never before in her life played an actual video game system. Sure, she has this little pocket pet sort of toy that lets her care for a rabbit and play some games with it, but that's it. Once she got the hang of moving the little guy on the screen and jumping, it wasn't too long before she was able to get through one of the first levels all by herself. I cried a little bit.

She has a long way to go, of course. She still hasn't gotten the hang of the cape or being a fire guy. That will come in time, I'm sure. She just has to practice a little bit more.

The biggest surprise to me was that Anne agreed to it. Excuse me now, while I perform the sentimental musical number that I mentioned earlier.

"Is this the little girl I carried?"

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The Long Wait

I hate waiting for things. I hate waiting for a pregnancy test to be ready to read. I hate waiting in lines. I hate waiting for Christmas to be here. Most of all, I hate waiting for something to arrive. Whether it was company coming over when I was a kid, or simply for the mailman, it's always gotten on my nerves to wait for that arrival. This is amplified when I'm having to wait for a new toy. Such has been the case for the past few weeks while waiting for my laptop to arrive. Yes, that's right, I finally purchased one.

Those who know me well will recall the fact that in my ideal case, I would now be typing on a MacBook Pro. There's just one slight problem with that original plan: they're really expensive. The $1700 for a refurbished MacBook would have taken me another year or so to save up the necessary funds. For a while, I was content to wait, but then circumstances conspired against me. You see, for a few months, we had the laptop belonging to Anne's brother here while I was configuring it for their use as missionaries in Mexico. We quickly found that laptops are addictive. They're so nice and convenient. We didn't have to run all the way into the basement (a short trip, sure, but with small children in the house, you can't make a trip quickly enough) to check our email, the score of the Twins' game (usually not good), or see what the weather is like outside (because opening a window is too hard). You can imagine the withdrawal that we experienced when we finally had to send the laptop to the rightful owners to be used as it was originally intended. Now I could no longer sit on the couch and write my snarky comments. Anne couldn't email me several times a day (I really missed that). This called for drastic measures. This called for my giving up being so stubborn.

One could ask at this point, "Why didn't you go for the cheaper option of the MacBook?" Excellent question. I'm glad that I had you ask that in our pretend conversation. There's a couple of reasons that I didn't want to go for the MacBook. First, I'm not all that crazy about how small the screen was. Sure, it's really small and cute and portable, but would I get tired of looking at such a small screen? Secondly, it bothered me that they used two sticks of RAM to get up to one gigabyte. This might seem like a small thing, but when I knew that I'd want to be upgrading it to two gigs, it became more expensive to upgrade that way. Finally, and this is big for me, was the fact that it was using the integrated graphics card. I know that the integrated graphics have gotten better than they were in previous incarnations, but there's still something in me that's bothered by having such an important component of how the system performs being essentially an after-thought add-in to the motherboard. Give me something I can sink my teeth into that starts by letting me know how big the RAM is on my video card. Don't make me use the RAM that the rest of the system is trying to use. That just doesn't make anyone happy. So, I couldn't go MacBook.

Then I started to research. Price was a big consideration, but I also didn't want something that would be completely obsolete in two months. It could be a little bit obsolete, but I drew the line at completely obsolete. A guy's gotta have standards, after all. I found that Gateway was a bit over-priced. I'd heard too many friends that had troubles with Toshiba. Sony is pretty, but a bit on the pricey side. Then I looked at Dell.
The company for which I work has a deal with Dell. You can either get a certain percentage off normal catalog pricing, or you can customize one of the "company standards" to your liking at a pretty substantial savings. That's the route that I went. Oh, sure, I couldn't get my laptop in Arctic Blue (<sarcasm>Oh, no. Whatever will I do without my laptop being a "custom" color</sarcasm>) and I also couldn't get Windows Vista on the machine, which might not be a bad thing from some of the stuff I've been hearing about Vista. However, I was able to get a Core 2 processor on it, one gig of RAM (single stick), a 128 MB Nvidia graphics card (for all the heavy Diablo 2 playing), and, all-in-all, a very nice machine.

I'm going to call it Junior.

The problem was, however, I had to wait for it. When I ordered it, I got a ship date that was three weeks after the time of placing the purchase. Needless to say, it was a long time to wait for me. I started religiously checking the order status page that Dell provides because, obviously, they have too much bandwidth and need to burn some off. I mean, I was pining the thing every few minutes at one point. Then, finally, it ticked over to "shipped." I raised my hands in triumph. Then I looked at the calendar and saw that it was shipping via 3-5 day ground and we had a long weekend ahead of us. There was no way that I thought it would be here before Tuesday of next week. I was downtrodden again. But I wasn't done with surprises just yet. It seems that DHL is able to get a package from Nashville, TN to my door in just over 24 hours. Anne called me at work around nine to let me know that it had arrived. That made for a really long day of work, let me tell you. Finally, though, I was home and could open the package. Well, after the kids were down for bed at least. Now, for the past three plus hours, I've been working on getting everything installed (FireFox, Pidgin, Hamachi).

Now, if only I could figure out why it's making so much noise each time it's accessing the hard drive. I wonder if I should be worried.

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Random Thoughts Special Edition: Chicago

This past weekend, Anne and I took some time away from the kids and went to Chicago to be tourists. Here are some of the random thoughts from walking around the Windy City.

• The drive to Chicago goes pretty well, but there's one thing I've decided: I can't stand toll roads. Anne's trying to nap and I'm trying to listen to podcasts when another toll booth crops up.
• We stayed out near O'Hare and went with the visitor pass for public transportation. We have no idea what we're doing, and it shows. We missed our first bus. Twice.
• Our first trip was to the John Hancock Observatory. Question: Do you really want to be telling people that the elevator that they're riding in at over 20 MPH to the 94th floor is older than they are?
• Report from the 94th floor: The building is tall. I can see far. Hey look, there's a pool on top of that building.
• "Thank you for visiting the Observatory at the John Hancock building. It's a different experience each time." The next time we're there, the building will be short.
• Called home. The kids are doing fine. They can't talk very long, though, because they're busy playing Nintendo. It's always fun when Grandma's over.
• Current score: Uno's Pizza 1, Kamp 0. Very good pizza, though.
• The train ride home is long. Entertainment is provided, however, in the form of a large bald man in his twenties, his short bottle-blond girlfriend, and his mother who's dressing 20 years younger than she is. Good times.
• Oh crap, there went one of the buses that we could have taken home.
• Double crap. The other bus that we thought we could take doesn't run this late at night.
• I hate not being able to sleep.
• Turns out that the Chicago comic book convention was going on this weekend. How come no one told me this?
• We get to the Shedd Aquarium. There's a gigantic line to get in stretching outside in 90-degree heat. Thanks to the City Pass, we walk right in. Definitely the way to go. Thank you City Pass.
• They have a gigantic tank with sting rays, sharks, eels, and a bunch of little fish that, collectively, are known as "bait."
• Hey look! It's bald guy and BBGF again!
• There's something very, very creepy about a komodo dragon looking at you from two feet away, separated by only an inch of glass. It's like he's thinking, "Dude, I'm only a couple hundred pounds away from causing a Saturday matinee movie in this joint. Hey there, kid. I shall call you, 'Light Snack.'"
• Why am I looking at fish that I've caught fishing with my father-in-law?
• Dolphin show: ooooo...aaaaahhh. It's already done?
• Why is the guy surprised that I want to get the "cajun mayo" on the otherwise completely bland chicken sandwich?
• We go into the Field Museum for the express purpose of taking a picture of the dinosaur skeleton that they have. Thank you City Pass.
• At this point in the day, I'm really not all that interested in spending a bunch of time at the planetarium.
• A free movie about black holes narrated by Liam Neeson. Very nice. Thank you City Pass.
• Oh cool! A replica Mars Rover!
• Sweet! A replica Gemini capsule!
• We decide to be "smart" and ride the train all the way to O'Hare because the hotel told us they have a shuttle that runs there every 30 minutes. We wait for an hour there because it turns out that on a Friday night at one of the busiest airports in the world, they only have one driver for the shuttle, and he's busy taking some people to a restaurant. Grumble.
• Hey look, there's Bald Guy, BBGF and tight-shirt mom going in to that hotel. Weird. Both the coincidence of running into them three times and them in general. Just a strange group.
• "This is not a bus stop!" I'm very, very sorry, bus driver lady.
• First up is the Museum of Science and Industry. I could spend all day here looking at the U-505 and the other stuff, but at this point in the trip, I'm pretty much tourist-ed out.
• Wouldn't you know? We get the same bus driver lady that yelled at us before. She seems in a much better mood, though.
• Lesson learned this weekend: My wife's camera is very, very heavy in the backpack when I have to carry it around for three days straight.
• Final tourist spot is the Navy Pier.
• I refuse to eat at a place that doesn't give me free refills on drinks.
• "Yeah, let's go fancy for our last meal in Chicago. Take a quick look at the menu they have posted. Holy crap. Let's go to Haagen-Dazs."
• Toy store lady, why do you keep shooting me with an air cannon?
• My knee is stiff from all the walking.
• Finally, we've figured out how everything works with the public transportation thing. On our last day here.
• "I miss you daddy." Thanks, Doodle.
• I don't feel bad smuggling in candy to a movie when I'm being charged $9 per ticket.
• Ride back goes as smoothly as one could hope. Except for the toll booths. Grumble.
• It's good to be home.

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More Than Meets the Eye

A good portion of my childhood was spent in a world created by Hasbro. I was always incredibly enamored with the Transformers. I played with the toys; watched the cartoon; read the comic books; pretended to be the characters; and talked about the toys, cartoon, comic books, and characters with friends and family. I would recreate the sounds from the cartoon every time one of my toys or my pretend body would go from one physical state to another. Needless to say, I was looking forward to the movie.

Anne mentioned that if we wanted to, we could head to the theater when we were at her folks' for the weekend and see Transformers. You can see why I love this woman. We went to the theater, paid way too much for two people going to see a movie, grabbed our pop and our seats, and prepared for the movie.

First, the good. The special effects were really, really good. There wasn't any "out of place" effects where the actors don't seem to be part of the special effect that I noticed, which is a feat in and of itself. There was a slight nod to the sound of the transforming the first time that we saw a vehicle change in to robot form which I greatly appreciated considering how many times I mimicked that noise on my own. Then there is the voice. I would have boycotted this movie if Peter Cullen wasn't the voice of Optimus Prime. Any other voice commanding the Autobots under the name Optimus Prime would have been a travesty of epic proportions. I got goosebumps when he said "Autobots, roll out." They need to get a recording of Cullen doing every possible sound in the English language so that he can always be the voice of Prime. Nothing else will do. The human characters did an admirable job in the "I'm shocked by this car turning in to a giant robot" category. Also, they served as good comic relief in appropriate places. The director, Michael Bay, seemed willing to embrace the "cheese" of the animated series which was actually welcome from a nostalgic point of view.

Now, the bad. The plot seemed to skip forward in several different places such that I felt like we missed something. Some characters just seemed to be abandoned without seeing the ultimate resolution of their plot lines. The fight scenes felt too brief. I wanted to see Prime lay some smack down over a few minutes. Also, during the battle scenes, it was sometimes hard to determine which giant robot was which. They seemed to mesh together at different times.

This is a movie that is crying, screaming, yelling, and begging for a director's cut. For me, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring did not feel complete until we received the extended version. I think the same is true for Transformers. I want the holes in the story to be filled. I want to be able to watch the giant robots pummel each other for more than 30 seconds at a time. I want there to be an educational section at the end to close the show with someone saying "Now I know!" and to have someone respond "And knowing is half the battle." Oh, wait. Wrong '80's cartoon show.

Final verdict: Very good, but not awesome action movie. Four out of five energon cubes.

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Crisis of Conscience

It's gotten to the point that I'm pretty much morally opposed to paying for content on the internet. One of the whole thoughts behind the internet was the quick, free exchange of thoughts and ideas. That philosophy has mostly carried forward as the internet has added users and services at a breakneck pace. What was once text has become graphics. What had been typing back and forth to a friend has become talking as clearly as on the phone and, if you have enough bandwidth, seeing the person to whom you're talking. What was having everything freely available, has become registering with the site or even paying for the access to the content. That has always bothered me.

There has been only one time that I have paid for content on the web. It's when I became a member of Consumer Reports as we were about to buy our house and were going to be purchasing everything that you need to get when you first have a home (appliances, lawn mower, grill, mini van - the necessities). I justified it by deciding that they provide a very valuable service to consumers and don't accept any advertising from companies to ensure that there is no question about their objectivity. Also, this proves that I'm a hypocrite. But I'm OK with that now.

Recently, however, I was faced with a dilemma. One of the websites that I have flat-out refused to pay for their content is the ESPN website. Sure, they have the majority of their articles up for free (thankfully, this includes the Sports Guy), but they also have their "exclusive" (read: pay for it) content as part of their "Insider" accounts. Mostly, it comes down to the fact that they've scoured the websites of local papers and provide it as "inside" information for the teams about which you may be interested. However, they also have their scouting reports for the drafts (NFL and NBA being the big ones to me) and other information about the teams from some of their columnists. At least, that's what they say they have. I've never actually looked since, like I mentioned, I don't pay for content, so I'm not an insider. I did, however, recently become a subscriber to ESPN the Magazine. I was disappointed that I missed the promotion that would have bundled my subscription with a month's supply of ESPN the Toilet Paper and ESPN the Bedsheets (thank you, Mel Brooks), but I was happy just to get the magazine. Interesting articles, good pictures of some of the biggest events, and even a page dedicated strictly to Mike and Mike. All things considered, pretty cool stuff. Then, in my latest issue of the magazine, I noticed a little blurb that stated that if I was an ESPN the Magazine subscriber, I also could get an Insider account for free. Now, I'm in a quandary. I'm opposed to the idea of paying for content on the internet, and if I used Insider, isn't that a tacit endorsement of paying for the content? At the same time, they already have my money, and they are, in essence, giving me Insider as an added bonus. It might not seem like a big deal, but to me, it kinda sorta is.

So, do I go ahead and use the service that's being provided to me? Do I stand on my perceived moral high ground? It's an interesting question (to me) with, really, no actual ramifications. After all, I've already admitted that I'm a hypocrite.

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Upon Further Review: Ocean's Twelve

I can tend to be very critical of movies. Especially sequels of movies that I really enjoy. For instance, see my opinion on the two Matrix sequels. With the advent of a new summer and, subsequently, a new round of summer sequels, this issue came to a head again. One of the movies that we were interested in seeing (if for no other reason than completeness) was Ocean's Thirteen. We had seen the first two, so we figured that we should probably see the third. I should point out that both Anne and I really enjoyed the first one. I loved the pacing. I loved the twists. I loved the cast. Then we saw the second one. I thought that it was horribly unbelievable. I know, I know, the first one wasn't exactly believable either, but that's not the point.

The entire movie seemed to hinge on the very flimsy premise that they were able to get things completely in place pretty much before the main story even started. And it was all mainly a ploy anyway. All things considered, it was a fairly disappointing movie to me. After we watched the third movie, I had pretty much the same reaction as I did following the third pirates move: it was better than the second one. Anne, not letting me rest on making a blanket statement like that, asked the obvious question: "Why?" Nuts. I wasn't prepared for that. Now, I have to defend my position, and to be perfectly honest, all I had was my memories of the impressions that I had of the movie instead of any actual remembrance of the "why." I mentioned this to a friend of mine at work, and he had said that he felt the same way after seeing Ocean's Twelve, but that "it gets better after watching it again." Since we really didn't have any memories of the second movie, we figured that we should get the first two and watch them again. I somehow made it through a full-screen version of the first movie (I'm kind of a jerk when it comes to movies, in case you haven't noticed. I need to watch the wide-screen, or it drives me nuts), and then we came to watching Ocean's Twelve again. I have to say that my friend was right. Perhaps I was simply paying closer attention this time around. Or maybe it was a case of wanting to pay closer attention this time. Either way, it seemed to make more sense. As such, I enjoyed the movie more. Is it better than the first one? No. Is it better than the third? No. However, it's now closer than it was before. I guess that's something.

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500 v. 0.7

The instructor looked to where Derek was supposed to be found. Instead, he saw nothing there. The spheres were gone. Derek was nowhere to be seen. And there was another bird missing.

The instructor sighed. "I don't think that his father is going to take this very well," he said to the empty room.

************

Derek's brain started taking stock of his situation. He felt very odd, although he knew that, for some reason, he ought to be feeling very dead. It then occurred to him that perhaps feeling dead meant that you felt very odd. He would have to test that hypothesis some day. If he wasn't already dead, of course. Otherwise, the point was moot. It was then that he realized that his eyes were still closed. He inverted that situation. The first thing that he saw was a yellow ball over his head. Hmm. A main-sequence, medium-sized star. How utterly boring.

His mind tried to piece together some form of what had happened. He was following his instructor's orders, just like always. He was about to attach the connector to siphon off the Resheph. Since it had been a double conversion, that amount of energy would have powered everything for at least a year. The bird got loose. He had reached for the bird. Now he was here, under some very warm--but quite boring--yellow star. But that star was suddenly blocked by a shadow.

"You OK?" a small voice was asking him.

"Of course I'm fine." Another oddity: His voice sounded different. Maybe it was some backlash from the bird hitting the energy.

"You don't look fine," the voice continued. "Otherwise, why would you by lying down on the ground?"

The ground. That explains why he was staring up at the yellow ball. "I wanted to take a nap."

"Mama says that if you want to take a nap, you should go to your own room."

"I'll keep that in mind next time."

The voice giggled and the blockage of the star was gone. Finally, some peace to think.

He had been reaching for the bird. There shouldn't have been much danger from the Resheph, just a slight shock. After all, the Neshef had been completely condensed out of the sphere, hadn't it? What if it had not?

"You all right there, buddy?" A new blockage of the star. This time, larger and with a deeper voice.

"Why do people keep asking me that? I'm fine. Go away."

"'Fraid I can't do that. You're blocking the sidewalk. You need to move somewhere else."

Derek was getting annoyed. "I am perfectly comfortable right where I am. You shall now leave."

"Seriously, you need to move. We can't have you laying there. You're a hazard to others. Now let's move it along. Right now."

"Don't you know who I am?" Derek screamed.

"Of course I do, Frank."

End of introduction.

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Give Me a Break

Life has been busy and tiring lately. Part of the tiring half of that is my own fault. I have a tendency to stay up much later than I should, including Thursday game night. You see, some years ago, Anne and I made a decision that each of us needs to have some time each week to ourselves. With Anne currently being a work at home mom, she especially needs time away from the children, as her job doesn't currently accrue vacation time, though there have been rumors of a union starting to organize.

Anyway, every Wednesday night I'm in charge of the kids while Anne gets to head out of the house or go upstairs and watch a movie or whatever. The biggest thing is that I'm in charge of the kids, and she's not needing to be concerned with them at all. At least in theory. My night is Thursdays. I'm a natural home body. My idea of a great vacation is a few days away from work and sitting around the house doing as little as possible except for spending time with family, reading, and doing stuff on the computer. It stems from when I was growing up, and we had dairy cattle so we couldn't go anywhere. So when Thursday nights come around and the kids are in bed, I make my way to the computer. It started with just myself, but then I realized that Frederick III might have free nights as well. Or at least that the kids might be in bed over there. I called him up, investing a few cell phone minutes. He was interested. After a couple of weeks of playing Diablo II, F3 had the suggestion of including his brother-in-law in the game as well. Through the magic of Skype, we were able to talk and socialize while enjoying the cathartic experience of smacking pixellated creatures with a virtual mace. A good time was had by all. We've since added another of F3's brothers-in-law. He currently only has one BIL that isn't playing with us. Which is fine with me. See, I've known his BILs prior to their joining the game, so it's all good. Let's hope that's the last time that I use the phrase "it's all good" in my writing. Ever.

Since we don't start until after 9 (9:30 if F3 is running late) and we want to get some good, quality gaming time in, we usually play until about midnight. Or so. We thought that we'd have a hard cap of midnight, but it's really turned into a soft cap. The big thing is getting to a good stopping point so that we can pick up very easily next time.

What's the point? Time to unwind. Time to spend with friends. More importantly, it's so that I get more time with my family. That might initially seem counter-intuitive, but you need to understand my personality. Before having that definite time to play games, a hobby that I've enjoyed since we would go to Pizza Hut and I'd play their Pole Position game, I'd try to sneak away for a few minutes here and there whenever I could. This meant that I had less time to spend with family. I have a personality that takes things that I like to excess. This way, I know that I'm going to have time to play games for an extended period of time, so I don't have to worry about sneaking it in when I should be spending time with my family.

I highly recommend doing something like this in any marriage. I know that it's helped ours.

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500 v. 0.6

Immediately after the final quarter-turn on the second set of knobs, the room filled with a deafening silence. At that precise moment, there was a pulse of white light so brief and so intense, one might not even be able to differentiate it from a blink.



Derek looked up to find both birds suspended in midair, surrounded by a familiar sphere of translucent blue energy he had only previously seen in textbooks.




He stepped away from the control station, jaw slightly dropped, and fought the urge to reach out and grab one of the spheres. He had enough training time to remember that while you could only see the blue energy, there was an invisible sphere of energy around the orb that was quite unstable, and if it was disrupted, it would send a shockwave through whatever organic substance touched it so powerful that it would completely vaporize it. Then there would be no unfortunate ash heap.



“Well done,” the instructor calmly encouraged. “Well done indeed. We haven’t had two Resheph Spheres contained in this lab for three lunar years. Stand there while I start the condenser to stabilize and dissipate the Nesheph layer.”



Resheph and nesheph were the aptly named layers of energy that created the blue spheres that held the birds suspended in time. They were terms from the old language adopted into the current era of technology and science. Defined, the root sheph literally means "light." "Good Light" and "Evil Light" respectively is how the Ancients would interpret the terms. Anything in the physical world that could be seen was good, and anything in the physical world that could not been seen was considered evil, or deceptive, if you will.



These things in science needed some term to describe them, and silly as they sometimes came out, the old language was rife with words that nobody used anymore.



A small pole lowered from the ceiling over each one of the daises. Mounted on the end of each one of the poles was a small inverted pyramid of condensed carbon. The condenser attracted the Nesheph layer of energy, focused it on the carbon pyramid, and dissipated it in small, focused sparks of light--much like a sparkler looks like on the Fourth of July, but at a slightly slower pace.



Not realizing how close he was to the remaining bird specimens, Derek removed his safety goggles to wipe some sweat from his brow. As the hand with the recently removed eye protection swung to his side, the elastic strap from the goggles caught one of the jars and knocked it to the floor. The glass shattered and the bird took off in flight to make a quick escape directly over one of the Resheph spheres.



“Nooooooooooooooo!!!!!” was all Derek could shout as he reached for the bird. The sparkler stopped. The room seemed to distort as the Nesheph pulsated spastically.



The instructor looked up from the controls in the small room where he had been operating the Nesheph Condenser.

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500 V. 0.5

It was at this moment that Derek remembered that he had forgotten to put his safety goggles back over his eyes. He reached one hand up to put them back in place. This was the latest in his list of mistakes on the day.

"No!" yelled the instructor, reaching for the knob that Derek's hand was supposed to be turning at that moment. He had gotten it only a quarter turn around when the light flashed again. The gorilla chorus that had been unified on a single note now broke in to hundreds of discordant tones. There was a new pile of dust on the dais. The instructor sighed heavily.

"Derek, I think this has been too easy on you."

"Too easy?" Derek replied, incredulous. "I have yet to succeed. How could it possibly be too easy?"

"You're letting your mind wander instead of focusing on the task at hand. Let's try it again, but this time, we'll use both platforms."

"That's impossible! Both platforms simultaneously is reserved for the most seasoned of operators. You can't honestly think that I..."

"That will be quite enough!" The instructor interrupted sharply. "You will do what you are told when you are told it, child."

Instead of being chastised, Derek straightened his back and tilted his chin in a show of defiance. "Child? Need I remind you," he said, "of our relative stations?"

The instructor showed no anger. No emotion. "In this room," he said quietly, "your station has no meaning. My word is law here. Now, you will attempt both platforms, or you will resign as my apprentice."

"We both know that isn't an option."

"Therefore, your choice is clear."

Derek stared at the instructor for a moment longer. The instructor's eyebrows rose in a pantomimed Well? Derek strode over to the collection of birds, selecting two quite energetic creatures that had spent the last half hour flapping in their jars, searching for an escape. He placed on one each raised platform and walked over to the controls. He was about to reach for the wheel that initialized the system when the instructor cleared his throat. Derek looked quickly over at him, throwing a glare at the instructor. The old man just grinned slightly and tapped his safety goggles which were already in place over his eyes. Derek grumbled wordlessly to himself and pulled the goggles over his eyes.

Derek grabbed the first set of control wheels. This time, instead of turning the knobs smoothly to their stopping points, he would turned them a quarter rotation and swiftly moved his hands to another identical set slightly to the right and copy the same motion. A quarter turn, change to the other set, another quarter turn. The chorus of gorillas began singing once again, but with an intensity that dwarfed their previous effort. Sweat formed on Derek's brow as his hands were moving from one control to another.

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Random Thoughts, Vol. 3

• Should I be worried that when my daughter is wearing her pink sunglasses, she strangely makes me think of Kurt Cobain? She has that same straight blond hair for one thing, I guess.
• Except that she's sober and alive, of course.
• Today's sign that I'm getting old: I went over to a friend's house for a gaming night (he just purchased a Wii) the other day. It was a lot of fun. However, it's now two days later, and my shoulders are still sore.
• That reminds me: I'm out of shape as well as getting old.
• There are few things in this world that are as sad - in the completely superficial and selfish sense - as an empty bowl of ice cream.
• Of course, if your stomach is hanging out of the front of your XXL Styxx shirt, you might want to consider skipping Cold Stone for the evening.
• John in Poughkeepsie! Hello!
• I was out for a walk this morning and saw tons of ants all over the side walk. I think there's something brewing...
• ...and I, for one, welcome our new ant overlords.
• In case you missed the above statement, yes, I am walking for exercise. I never thought I would either. I justify it by telling myself it's a way to catch up on podcasts.
• Speaking of podcasts, currently on my list: MacBreak Weekly, 7th Son Trilogy, The Bitterest Pill.
• The NBA draft is this week. I'm much more interested in the draft than I was in the playoffs, and that's a really sad statement for the league.
  

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