It Is ALL My Fault:

Yes, you read that right, it is ALL my fault:

The massive breakdown in the Middle East Peace process;
The sinking of the Andrea Doria;
The failure of Al Gore to be elected in 2004 (this is the worst, sorry everyone);
The Hindenburg Disaster;
The fact that Mucho Grande Nachos at Taco Bell have over 1300 calories and more then 80 grams of fat (as well as the fact that the nutrition guide on their website will crash your computer);
President Bush's Veto on Stem-Cell Research;
The fact that Teletubbies are popular;
The death of the Electric Car;
The high price of gasoline;
The car crash that killed Marc Bolan (Mark Feld);
Wal-Mart's planned proposal to build a Supercenter in Lima, NY;
The deadly heat-wave in California;
The shortage of volunteers for Honeoye Falls Fire Department and Honeoye Falls Volunteer Ambulance;
Pine Fungus;
The pesky tendency for rolling over that the Ford Explorer exhibits;
Floyd Landis failing his drug test;
The fact that a Garbage Plate is just a little too big to eat all of, unless you have been drinking;
The USA team doing so poorly in the 2006 FIFA World Cup;
All rain delays;
Mel Gibson's DUI arrest (I was supposed to give him a ride, but I split early);
The fact that American's have no idea what good TV is.

For this, and many more things that I didn't list: I apologize.

Weirdness, I say.

As many of you may know, I have been search for a job for the last couple months. Well, I happened to stumble across a listing for an Armed Guard/Driver for a national armored car service that operates up here. I guess I never really thought about it, but the advertised starting pay is $10.00/hour.

Doesn't the money seem a little disproportionate to the expectation?

Not the biggest pool in the world, but it cools the kids. We have used it nearly every day for the past two weeks. 

Ryan likes eating green beans fresh from our plants. 

Thunder and Lightning.

Last night we finally got a good nights sleep. That was not quite the case for the Friday night/Saturday morning shift. First, Ryan normally wakes up around midnight, so that was the first incident. But anyone in the area might have heard the 5 AM thunderstorm, which was actually pretty dramatic.

Ryan must have woke up at the first, and tiniest rumble and came running into our room (in the pitch dark) shrieking like his left arm just fell off. It took a few minutes for us to calm him down, right about when Holly woke up and started crying also. So I went in a got her. When we were in bed (thank goodness for our king-sized bed, best purchase we have ever made) we tried to make it into a fun game. As much as anything at 5 AM can be a fun game. Seeing the flash and then trying to get them to count to anticipate and expect the ensuing rumble. It did seem to help, they smiled a few times. The problem was mainly during the pinnacle of the storm when the flashes of light and the thunder were nearly simultaneous. They were a little freaked out by that. But after the storm abated I was able to get them back in their respective sleeping locations and we all grabbed a couple more hours of sleep.

Strangely enough they slept long enough for Michelle to miss her morning Jazzercise class. The kids have been our alarm clock for so long, that when they got up and took off their Goodnight Diapers, changed into undies, and played a game quietly in the girls' room, it really messed us up.

Musical Report:

Right now, I would have to say that my favorite album is: The Brave and The Bold by Tortoise and Bonnie "Prince" Billy. I found it after trying to increase my library of Tortoise songs. They are "a rhythm section for hire" according to their own description, but they are so much more then that. The 3 or 4 CD's of instrumental music I have purchased just barely scratch the surface. The CD I mentioned above is one that is comprised of covers of other groups (like Springsteen, Elton John, and DEVO). But they are completely different, while being still recognizable. The kind of songs that make you stop whatever it is that your doing, and listen to the gravel voice, and winding music. I have had the CD on my mp3 player for a while now, and I don't think I'll be removing any tracks any time soon.

The one problem is that there are a couple tracks (and this isn't a problem that I have had only with this CD) that when I'm listening to them with the mp3 player's earbuds, the song starts out going from one side to the other. With earbuds this issue is a big thing for me, when the music oscillates sides like that, completely switching every second or so, I need to stop walking (unless I'm not walking in the first place, duh). It sounds silly, but I wouldn't be able to continue in a straight line, I get a little wobbly like if I just did some bat spins or something (just without the neasuea). I guess balance is a tricky thing.

Reference to the past

The Official Butter Index for the past couple days, and continuing for this whole week (according to the weather report) is almost liquid.


(Remember? We have a butter bell. It allows you to keep your butter on the counter, at room temperature. But it doesn't allow air contact, so it won't spoil.)

A great Daddy trick:

Michelle often gets credit and billing ("Momma tricks") for a great many things, like great tips for putting on your jacket. But I have developed a 100% genuine Daddy trick: Using the pizza cutter for cutting eggs. This works well on scrambled or any other kind, and best of all, the kids can cut their own. Very important.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

We watched this movie tonight, and I heard the funniest quote in a long time!

Willy Wonka: [talking to Veruca Salt, while pointing at his nut sorting squirrels] Don't touch that squirrel's nuts! It drives them crazy.

Holly Quote

It has been a while since I posted a funny quote from the kids, so here you are:

Holly was trying to say that she liked the beginning of a song that we were listening to, so she said "I know the edge of this song, and I like it."

Not the post that I planned on.

My last posting, I referenced some other heavy thoughts that I was having, and promised that I would continue later. That post will have to wait, because when I was perusing the current issue of TV Guide (July 10th-16th, 2006, page 11, "You Tell Us") I stumbled across a letter that someone had wrote to them which seemed eerily familiar, until I glanced down further and saw my name credited.

Neat, huh?

This is what was written. They edited down a bit from the full email that I sent to them, but it more or less gets the point across. They made up the title, don't blame that part on me.

"Cup Runneth Over.

I think it's fantastic that ABC is airing two and sometimes three World Cup games a day but all the commercials are absurd! Instead, they could hire a few smart Brits to school us Americans for a few minutes. I still don't understand all the offsides flags. Teach us!"

Then they were nice enough to spell my name right!

Now that I think about it, I guess I'll included the full text from my email, seems only appropriate to include that part (cut and paste is brilliant) .

"I am writing to talk about ABC's World Cup coverage. I think it is fantastic that they are airing 2 and sometimes 3 games each weekend day (the whole rest of the world is watching, some Americans are actually realizing that the rest of the world might be on to something and that soccer is actually a brilliant game to watch), but the commercials are nearly absurd.

I understand that airing each half (a minimum of 45 minutes) uninterrupted is potentially a loss of revenue, but to have halftime packed with commercials (there is supposedly a halftime show, but it is about 3-4 minutes), and 45 to 50 minutes of commercials in between games seems like an extraordinary waste of space. All the games have "presented by" corporate sponsors, doesn't that lower the need for all the intervening commercials? It makes it appear that the network couldn't come up with anything interesting enough, and that they had to just fall back to just shoehorning in a bunch of filler. Surely the USA could benefit from a little remedial soccer education, they could hire a few smart Brits to get up and school us for a few minutes. I still don't understand all the offsides flags. Teach us!"

This is the prequel.

My next post will be something of an additional observation, however this post is going to be the proverbial (but, I guess also literal) building block for the next.

I have been thinking a lot about why we (people) are the way we are. I guess in a way trying to reconcile what we (people) are, and the way we behave through the lens of evolution. My main observation for today is that we evolved in small groups. Small tribes, small villages, family groups and a radius of explored land around us was all our lives consisted of. Tens of tens of thousands of years went by without newspapers, 24-hour news channels, and broadband internet (fat pipes). As intellect and technology have improved our radius of explored land has increased dramatically. And because of that, in my opinion we have a pretty striking dichotomy with the way we perceive the world. And it seems to boil down to this: from the time we are very young we are mercilessly desensitized to any pain or death that happens "out there", not within our own household. Even occurrences near our own worldviews (?) are purposely (consciously or unconsciously) ignored or shut-out. We see images in the news or even on entertainment TV that are graphic or seriously profound. And they are filtered into and out of our minds to protect the id within us. We see images nearly everyday of military troops (not just US, I'm thinking more globally) coming under fire, dissidents in countries with harsh human rights policies immolating themselves, or even entertainment TV of a dramatization of a woman being stalked by a sexual predator. And we barely blink, until something happens to us, or close to us. It seems it takes something happening within the small group that we evolved to sentience within. It isn't until we are struck within the family or those we consider family. It isn't until we see it with our own eyes that we see death and mourn. It isn't until we see the torn clothes or bruised body and get angry. It isn't until we recognize that someone was hurt that we let ourselves react.

I am not sure that is entirely good for us.

I don't know that it is healthy for us to be so unaware. I used to work with a girl at Borders who was a bit of a closet Goth, and one lunch hour I got in a discussion that in the of despite the daily evidence, people so rarely think about death. We ended the discussion after we both sunk into thought about our agreement that if more people thought more about death and the apparent permanence of that event how different would the world be?

And that is all for the prequel, please comment, and I will tie the main theme into the last thought next time that I write. Hopefully soon. World Cup is almost over.

Amazing Feet!

I'm trying to decide what exactly is the most surprising to me.

1) That England lost to Portugal today!

2) That Brazil lost to France today!

3) That I had such a strong reaction to those events! I had goosebumps on my arms watching the penalty kick shoot-out at the end of the England game. And I felt such disbelief with each English miss.