Our enemies filled the land
Joshua conquered with Israel
Gideon took 300
Jonathon's shieldbearer
Jesus
Showing posts with label Memes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Memes. Show all posts
03 December, 2009
Meme: The Bible in 15 words
12 April, 2008
Bob's 6 Word Meme
Bob posted his memoir in 6 words. The moment I read his, mine sprung to mind, so I figured I'd fess up to it:
He came, he cried, he faltered.
Only the fact that the Lord is God would keep me from putting that on my headstone. Nothing could keep me from deserving it.
He came, he cried, he faltered.
Only the fact that the Lord is God would keep me from putting that on my headstone. Nothing could keep me from deserving it.
30 March, 2008
Pearlie asked so nicely. :-)
5 things on several subjects in 1998, huh? Well, it was a pivotal year for me. My marriage was showing its first final cracks, and I was screwing up my courage to leave my dream church.
What was I doing 10 years ago?
1) Just settling in to my first job as an IT guy.
2) Rehabbing my knee surgery. Hit the gym and make it really hurt, bad, every day.
3) Hiding my true feelings about my church in hundreds of odd situations.
4) Wondering why I owned a pickup truck. Amy wanted it and wouldn't drive it.
5) Training a dog Amy rescued. When I was done, she could tie him to the handlebars of her bike and ride past squirrels without being nervous.
5 things on my to-do list today:
1) Church then Prayer meeting later.
2) Trial position some rocks I bought yesterday for the garden. Dig them in next weekend.
3) Watch a little tennis.
4) Work really, really hard to stay off the court. I need an off day, no matter how bad I hate them. Fortunately, when Nate called it started raining.
5) Iron and shine the ol' shoes. (All done.)
Snacks I enjoy
1) Uh. What's this? A joke? Food good. Grunt.
2) Whole-wheat, soured biscuits before tennis. Good energy, no sugar blitz.
3) Failing that, bread and butter.
4) Failing that, wait for dinner.
5) I love all snacks, but nothing good comes of them. I'll sit down to eat a snack, and before I'm done it was just a meal out of snack food. I eat until I'm not hungry.
Things I would do if I were a billionaire
1) I'd write, publish and advertise everything I could.
2) I'd support anything promoting the old Christianity.
3) I'd hire a lawyer to figure out how not to bleed it all to the government.
4) I'd probably spend loads trying to figure out how to set up community in my neighborhood around my church.
5) After I'd made all the mistakes, I'd try to change every church in the world into a neighbor church.
Five of my bad habits
1) Staying up too late.
2) Fitting too much into every little crack of time.
3) Ignoring the state of my house, cleanliness and repair both.
4) Focusing entirely on what's directly in front of me, without thought to what's waiting on me.
5) Doing recreational tennis and blogging before other things that matter more.
Five places I have lived
1) Grass Valley, CA - The gorgeous foothills of the Sierra Nevada range.
2) Fort Hood, TX - The armpit of one of the most ungorgeous states in the union.
3) Atlanta, GA - Too hateful to be busy.
4) Columbus, OH - The most pleasantly non-descript place I've ever lived.
5) Aaaah. Well, I did 9 weeks of basic in Fort Leonard Wood, MO (Fort Lost-in-the-Woods.) Basic was one of the most trying and affirming experiences of my life, but it really got under my skin. Once I started sleep-walking there, I never slept more than 90 minutes at a stretch again until I was married. My wife said after our first night, "The first task with a new baby is getting it to sleep through the night."
Five jobs I've had
1) Computer sales flunky. (I was fired. I learned then that it is not good for Kevin Knox to be bored.)
2) Fast food cook. (Probably my all-time favorite job. For 13 hours a day I was in full-on adrenaline mode. I loved the layers upon layers of challenge there. I burnt out every 3 months like clockwork, but I got really good at overcoming burnout.)
3) Soldier. (They weren't shooting at anyone while I was in, so it was pretty easy. I became a mechanic assuming that, "At least they can't make me a clerk. I was wrong. 3 times. For all 3.5 years of my active duty.)
4) Mechanic. (Probably did more to define my character than anything else. It was another 13 hour a day job, and I loved that too.)
5) Programmer. (Probably the most natural fit for the old, reclusive me. I got to serve people without ever dealing with them. These days I'm more of an admin, and I think I might like it for the very people dealings programming is intended to avoid.)
Phew. I survived. Now I can go another 6 months without doing another self-revealing meme. :-)
What was I doing 10 years ago?
1) Just settling in to my first job as an IT guy.
2) Rehabbing my knee surgery. Hit the gym and make it really hurt, bad, every day.
3) Hiding my true feelings about my church in hundreds of odd situations.
4) Wondering why I owned a pickup truck. Amy wanted it and wouldn't drive it.
5) Training a dog Amy rescued. When I was done, she could tie him to the handlebars of her bike and ride past squirrels without being nervous.
5 things on my to-do list today:
1) Church then Prayer meeting later.
2) Trial position some rocks I bought yesterday for the garden. Dig them in next weekend.
3) Watch a little tennis.
4) Work really, really hard to stay off the court. I need an off day, no matter how bad I hate them. Fortunately, when Nate called it started raining.
5) Iron and shine the ol' shoes. (All done.)
Snacks I enjoy
1) Uh. What's this? A joke? Food good. Grunt.
2) Whole-wheat, soured biscuits before tennis. Good energy, no sugar blitz.
3) Failing that, bread and butter.
4) Failing that, wait for dinner.
5) I love all snacks, but nothing good comes of them. I'll sit down to eat a snack, and before I'm done it was just a meal out of snack food. I eat until I'm not hungry.
Things I would do if I were a billionaire
1) I'd write, publish and advertise everything I could.
2) I'd support anything promoting the old Christianity.
3) I'd hire a lawyer to figure out how not to bleed it all to the government.
4) I'd probably spend loads trying to figure out how to set up community in my neighborhood around my church.
5) After I'd made all the mistakes, I'd try to change every church in the world into a neighbor church.
Five of my bad habits
1) Staying up too late.
2) Fitting too much into every little crack of time.
3) Ignoring the state of my house, cleanliness and repair both.
4) Focusing entirely on what's directly in front of me, without thought to what's waiting on me.
5) Doing recreational tennis and blogging before other things that matter more.
Five places I have lived
1) Grass Valley, CA - The gorgeous foothills of the Sierra Nevada range.
2) Fort Hood, TX - The armpit of one of the most ungorgeous states in the union.
3) Atlanta, GA - Too hateful to be busy.
4) Columbus, OH - The most pleasantly non-descript place I've ever lived.
5) Aaaah. Well, I did 9 weeks of basic in Fort Leonard Wood, MO (Fort Lost-in-the-Woods.) Basic was one of the most trying and affirming experiences of my life, but it really got under my skin. Once I started sleep-walking there, I never slept more than 90 minutes at a stretch again until I was married. My wife said after our first night, "The first task with a new baby is getting it to sleep through the night."
Five jobs I've had
1) Computer sales flunky. (I was fired. I learned then that it is not good for Kevin Knox to be bored.)
2) Fast food cook. (Probably my all-time favorite job. For 13 hours a day I was in full-on adrenaline mode. I loved the layers upon layers of challenge there. I burnt out every 3 months like clockwork, but I got really good at overcoming burnout.)
3) Soldier. (They weren't shooting at anyone while I was in, so it was pretty easy. I became a mechanic assuming that, "At least they can't make me a clerk. I was wrong. 3 times. For all 3.5 years of my active duty.)
4) Mechanic. (Probably did more to define my character than anything else. It was another 13 hour a day job, and I loved that too.)
5) Programmer. (Probably the most natural fit for the old, reclusive me. I got to serve people without ever dealing with them. These days I'm more of an admin, and I think I might like it for the very people dealings programming is intended to avoid.)
Phew. I survived. Now I can go another 6 months without doing another self-revealing meme. :-)
03 February, 2008
Meming
I'm so unobservant.
I was tagged by Suzanne 4 days ago, so to remind everyone she's out there doing quality thinking, I'll play along. :-)
Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more.
(No cheating!) Find Page 123.
Find the first 5 sentences.
Post the next 3 sentences.
Tag 5 people.
The nearest book is still, "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. I decided after enjoying "No Country For Old Men" so much (did anyone see this movie yet? Any thoughts? Some bad thoughts are expected.) to pick up some other of his books and see what I thought.
The Road is an interesting counterpoint to NCfOM. Both books are equally bleak, dark, terrifying, and ugly. But where NCfOM told us that evil is winning the battle for the world, and that we should give up the fight, The Road tells us that love conquers everything, everything. If NCfOM was the ultimate "feel bad" movie, The Road is an incredible "feel sad" book. When you're done, you want to know whether you could bear such a weight, believe so unwaveringly, endure such worry, and hope through such a night. Again, though, it's not a happy book and many people would not enjoy it at all.
The selected three sentences from page 123 are indicative of the whole book:
The water was so clear. He held it to the light. A single bit of sediment coiling in the jar on some slow hydraulic axis.
(I thought I would post part 5 of There and Back Again tonight, but my second edit was too extensive. It needs another look. Maybe tomorrow.)
I was tagged by Suzanne 4 days ago, so to remind everyone she's out there doing quality thinking, I'll play along. :-)
Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more.
(No cheating!) Find Page 123.
Find the first 5 sentences.
Post the next 3 sentences.
Tag 5 people.
The nearest book is still, "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. I decided after enjoying "No Country For Old Men" so much (did anyone see this movie yet? Any thoughts? Some bad thoughts are expected.) to pick up some other of his books and see what I thought.
The Road is an interesting counterpoint to NCfOM. Both books are equally bleak, dark, terrifying, and ugly. But where NCfOM told us that evil is winning the battle for the world, and that we should give up the fight, The Road tells us that love conquers everything, everything. If NCfOM was the ultimate "feel bad" movie, The Road is an incredible "feel sad" book. When you're done, you want to know whether you could bear such a weight, believe so unwaveringly, endure such worry, and hope through such a night. Again, though, it's not a happy book and many people would not enjoy it at all.
The selected three sentences from page 123 are indicative of the whole book:
The water was so clear. He held it to the light. A single bit of sediment coiling in the jar on some slow hydraulic axis.
(I thought I would post part 5 of There and Back Again tonight, but my second edit was too extensive. It needs another look. Maybe tomorrow.)
09 January, 2008
Birdbrained
This is a pretty solid idea: Works For Me Wednesday
Ya'll know I've got nothing like the dedication to do anything every Wednesday, even post a question, but I'm impressed nonetheless.
It just so happens, though, that I actually do have a question for everyone. I've always wanted a bird. I think I'd love a bird. They seem to be like dogs, in that they need and love companionship, but without all the dogness that being a dog seems to require.
Anyone have any experience with birds?
I don't think I'm home enough to have a loving, handfed, solitary bird - it would be alone too much and go nuts. But maybe a little corner piece with 4 songbirds would give me a nice feel and pleasant noises. I don't often turn on the TV, radio or music, so breaking the silence pleasantly would be nice. Especially if they were hand fed enough to accept the occasional shoulder-ride.
... Once I put all the cats out, that is. Grrr. I love the one cat, but the other two have just about driven me past my tolerance. I'm too civilized to dispose of a living being for convenience sake, but just hillbilly enough to give it hard thought from time to time.
Ya'll know I've got nothing like the dedication to do anything every Wednesday, even post a question, but I'm impressed nonetheless.
It just so happens, though, that I actually do have a question for everyone. I've always wanted a bird. I think I'd love a bird. They seem to be like dogs, in that they need and love companionship, but without all the dogness that being a dog seems to require.
Anyone have any experience with birds?
I don't think I'm home enough to have a loving, handfed, solitary bird - it would be alone too much and go nuts. But maybe a little corner piece with 4 songbirds would give me a nice feel and pleasant noises. I don't often turn on the TV, radio or music, so breaking the silence pleasantly would be nice. Especially if they were hand fed enough to accept the occasional shoulder-ride.
... Once I put all the cats out, that is. Grrr. I love the one cat, but the other two have just about driven me past my tolerance. I'm too civilized to dispose of a living being for convenience sake, but just hillbilly enough to give it hard thought from time to time.
28 November, 2007
Vacationing
I just got back from a vacation, and stumbled across this site somehow. I figured all you survey-type people might enjoy it. It tells you what type of vacation best suits your personality, and wherever I heard about it, it was pretty highly recommended.
Maybe you'll figure out something about why your trips with your spouse don't always click. :-)
http://www.besttripchoices.com/
Maybe you'll figure out something about why your trips with your spouse don't always click. :-)
http://www.besttripchoices.com/
04 October, 2007
Manly Man Meme
Alright, I'll play a meme. It's from Popular Mechanics and is making the rounds. I think it's called the "he-man" meme or some such.
Before I start my bragging, I have to tell you that no one has ever accused me of being a man's man. In fact, I have spent most of my life thinking of myself as something of a pantywaist. 75 million peers can't all be wrong, right? I have to admit that taking this little meme was something of a pleasant surprise to me (or I wouldn't have shared it - I'm as vain as the next guy.)
1. Patch a radiator hose
I can tear the whole engine down to bones and rebuild it to spec within probably double the time requirements guideline without purchasing any new tools (though I'd have to borrow back my torque wrenches from Dave.) Or I can get you home with some 100-mile-an-hour tape.
2. Protect your computer
Without wrapping it in thin rubber, I assume? While doing it using your choice of my recommended tool cost/performance solutions, I can why explain worms and trojans are more dangerous than viruses, why Microsoft should be known as the Buffer Overrun birthing grounds, and how WinAntiVirusPro self-replicates to defeat Norton and McAfee, but falls to Kaspersky in one patch.
3. Rescue a boater who has capsized
If they mean how to right a capsized canoe or sailboat, I can do that. If they mean uprighting some boater's feet that happen to be sticking out of the water, I'm not sure righting him is needed so much as sobering him up.
4. Frame a wall
Does digging the footings, laying the foundation, plumbing, wiring, framing, roofing, and finishing our house with my father count? I was just weekend help, but I still know how to inset the windbrace in every wall, which a lot of people that know what "24 inch center" means have never heard of doing.
5. Retouch digital photos
I only know how to do this with the old manual blur/sharpen/etc stuff in Paint Shop Pro. I don't know how to use the "one-button fix" tools that are so popular these days.
6. Back up a trailer
I used to blind-side 50 foot trailers into 10 foot wide slots with a 55 foot approach area (yeah, that means I had to come in sideways, and whip the front end out 40 feet while sticking the backend in the slot blindly). I still have my CDL with A classification. So, I can legally drive anything with rubber as long as there are no hazmat certs or bus certs required.
7. Build a campfire
One match in a steady drizzle without fluids. Proved it repeatedly last summer during a week long trip with no amenities but water.
8. Fix a dead outlet
I've already covered this, but I have pulled wire through existing walls without gutting them and added circuits to my box without killing anyone. I did ask for help to wire up 220v. In my experience, asking for help when you need it should be counted as a manly point, too, but I don't think that will ever fly. Maybe I should also mention that I've worked 440v 3-phase electricity hot 1 inch away while a diesel generator mechanic. A year of that was enough, and went back to working on trucks.
9. Navigate with a map and compass
Through two trips at the National Training Center desert at night and in daylight. I can still get you where you're going with the stars alone, given sufficient motivation. I got pretty badly lost my first night, but I got us all into our beds after a couple extra hours and never turned too soon again.
10. Use a torque wrench
Well, they're on loan.
11. Sharpen a knife
You'll think I'm kidding, but I'm not. I was too embarassed to ask for a razor, and my parents were too ... something ... to admit that I needed one, and I was being laughed at for the fuzz. There was only one answer. So, for the first two years of my shaving career I shaved with my pocketknife. Give me any stone, and I'll give you a blade with which you can strip your face - even if it's not the closest, most comfortable shave you'll ever have.
12. Perform CPR
I did not have to actually perform the 15/2 exercise, but while out in the desert I did correctly diagnose my motor sergeant's congestive heart failure and get him to medical attention without him ever knowing anything was wrong. I figured if I told him he was having a heart attack, he'd have a heart attack, so I quietly came up with one excuse after another to get him back to the unit medics and called the shot correctly. I've had all the classes, including knowing that they no longer recommend the rescue breathing.
13. Fillet a fish
Why would anyone do this to a perfectly good knife? Still, I have dressed just enough fish with someone else's knives to prove I can. Namely, I dressed out several hundred grunnion(?) running out at the beach one night for smoking. Fillet, though? Nope. They've got me there. Ain't gonna fillet no water-breathers.
14. Maneuver a car out of a skid
I've maneuvered a street motorcycle on pavement out of a two-wheel skid (among other, less-interesting types). I also laid the bike down three times, but only once showing off for a chick. Car's are child's play. I've driven for blocks without ever letting car come back out of a skid. My son has gotten to the point of saying, "You know, this NEVER happens when I ride with my sister or mother." Last time, it was because I was in a little bit of a hurry in the rain and dished the rear end out coming off the freeway. That could happen to anyone, of course. The thing that rattled him was that I was paying no attention when it happened, and my immediate, instinctive reaction on feeling the fishtail was to floor the gas. It was, of course, the right reaction but not a lot of people do it. FTR, it works in bobtail tractors, too. I got stuck 4 times the first weekend I drove in snow, and never have been stuck again.
15. Get a car unstuck
Well, here we are revisiting previous points again. I've "unstuck" Hummers (military version, not the civilian toys), Deuce and halfs, and a 10 ton+ Goer using nothing but a rope. Yeah, I can get my rig out of anything it can be gotten out of.
16. Back up data
Some people think this is too easy, but do you want it backed up to tape, disk, USB, SAN, NAS, or optical WORM? Do you want it backed on or off schedule? Full backups or deltas only? Error reporting? Or do you really want RAID striping and redundancy or maybe high availability clustering? Are you talking about disaster recovery or business continuity with failover? People who think this is easy just aren't thinking hard enough.
17. Paint a room
Presumably they want the drywall mudwork finished and the sheetrock taped, the surface primed, and the fixtures removed as opposed to just slapping on some paint. I can go either way.
18. Mix concrete
I didn't really mix the concrete for our house, I just helped pour it. But, I mixed the concrete to rebuild my front steps when they crumbled under the Columbus freeze/thaw cycle. I learned a couple things in the process, but don't remember what they were now. I guess I'll have to learn those lessons all over again when the next opportunity comes around.
19. Clean a bolt-action rifle
Hmmmm. I can armorer strip an m-16 and field-strip an m-60 machine gun, and clean both to IG standards. I wonder if that counts? Because all I own is a muzzle-loading rifle, a lever-action rifle, two revolvers, one semi-auto pistol and one cap and ball pistol. All but the semi-auto pistol were inherited (no fetish here) but I grew up shooting and probably always will enjoy it, even if I don't live in a place where it is cheap any more. I qualified expert marksman with an uncorrected astigmatism in my shooting eye. I will always wonder whether I would have qualified for the base shooting team had I known there were not really *supposed* to be 2 front sights to aim with.
20. Change oil and filter
If I'm nervous, I'll cut open the filter and read it like a CSI to tell whether my engine really has anything serious going wrong inside it.
21. Hook up an HDTV
Wouldn't know where to start, except by reading the manual. I'm probably going to use the mandated conversion to HD as my excuse to fall off the television landscape entirely.
22. Bleed brakes
Lot's of car stuff in this list. Anyone can bleed brakes with a partner. I can bleed them alone with a stick or with a pressure or vacuum bleeder. I'd have to read the procedure on any antilock brakes, but most people don't even know the procedures can be very different.
23. Paddle a canoe
Hehehe. For amusement, I have been known to drift down a lake in a 25+ mile-per-hour blow, and spend the next half-hour paddling back. If your nose drifts more than 5 degrees to the left or right, the wind will catch it and throw you around facing the wrong direction again. By the time you muscle your way back around, and get a good head of steam built up again you've lost 50 yards. River canoeing is a lot more exciting, of course, and I've done both. The J stroke is the only one I can call by name.
24. Fix a bike flat
Yeah. And car flats and truck flats, too. Though getting the split-rim apart on a truck tire has to be one of the most physical jobs around. Inflating a split rim after fixing it can actually be death-defying, too. But in a pinch, I know how to re-inflate a truck tire using ether and a match. I've never done it, and I'd hide behind a concrete wall if I did, but I know how.
25. Extend your wireless network
I assume they mean buying a repeater. This makes you a man? If they mean anything more interesting than that, then I fail in this criterion. More interesting would be to ask how many men know which wireless security protocol to use, and where to set up the password so your neighbors can't sniff out everything you're browsing or use your connection for free.
---
So, as long as being a man does not involve fish or TV, I can keep up with most of them according to Popular Mechanics. But I'd like to fire back.
For starters, Robert Heinlein had a MUCH better list of things a man should be able to do. I'd like to see how many of their macho men can keep up with this list.
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
Heinlein was a sinner's sinner, but he was a man's man, too. He'd make my shameless bragging above look like amateur hour, and I'm cool with that. He impressed me because he knew everything that mattered was warm and tender. If a man doesn't know that core fact, he's just a paper man - even if he can bench press his car.
Looking beyond even Heinlein's man, the warmest, tenderest, most precious thing on earth is the bride of our Lord. A brother in the Lord should also be able to:
Comfort the broken hearted
Resist sin
Mortify his own evil desires
Strengthen those who are tempted
Bless those who mistreat him
Submit himself quietly to the discipline of the Lord
Mourn with those who mourn
Laugh with those who laugh
Speak always with grace
May the Lord bless His sons and daughters
Before I start my bragging, I have to tell you that no one has ever accused me of being a man's man. In fact, I have spent most of my life thinking of myself as something of a pantywaist. 75 million peers can't all be wrong, right? I have to admit that taking this little meme was something of a pleasant surprise to me (or I wouldn't have shared it - I'm as vain as the next guy.)
1. Patch a radiator hose
I can tear the whole engine down to bones and rebuild it to spec within probably double the time requirements guideline without purchasing any new tools (though I'd have to borrow back my torque wrenches from Dave.) Or I can get you home with some 100-mile-an-hour tape.
2. Protect your computer
Without wrapping it in thin rubber, I assume? While doing it using your choice of my recommended tool cost/performance solutions, I can why explain worms and trojans are more dangerous than viruses, why Microsoft should be known as the Buffer Overrun birthing grounds, and how WinAntiVirusPro self-replicates to defeat Norton and McAfee, but falls to Kaspersky in one patch.
3. Rescue a boater who has capsized
If they mean how to right a capsized canoe or sailboat, I can do that. If they mean uprighting some boater's feet that happen to be sticking out of the water, I'm not sure righting him is needed so much as sobering him up.
4. Frame a wall
Does digging the footings, laying the foundation, plumbing, wiring, framing, roofing, and finishing our house with my father count? I was just weekend help, but I still know how to inset the windbrace in every wall, which a lot of people that know what "24 inch center" means have never heard of doing.
5. Retouch digital photos
I only know how to do this with the old manual blur/sharpen/etc stuff in Paint Shop Pro. I don't know how to use the "one-button fix" tools that are so popular these days.
6. Back up a trailer
I used to blind-side 50 foot trailers into 10 foot wide slots with a 55 foot approach area (yeah, that means I had to come in sideways, and whip the front end out 40 feet while sticking the backend in the slot blindly). I still have my CDL with A classification. So, I can legally drive anything with rubber as long as there are no hazmat certs or bus certs required.
7. Build a campfire
One match in a steady drizzle without fluids. Proved it repeatedly last summer during a week long trip with no amenities but water.
8. Fix a dead outlet
I've already covered this, but I have pulled wire through existing walls without gutting them and added circuits to my box without killing anyone. I did ask for help to wire up 220v. In my experience, asking for help when you need it should be counted as a manly point, too, but I don't think that will ever fly. Maybe I should also mention that I've worked 440v 3-phase electricity hot 1 inch away while a diesel generator mechanic. A year of that was enough, and went back to working on trucks.
9. Navigate with a map and compass
Through two trips at the National Training Center desert at night and in daylight. I can still get you where you're going with the stars alone, given sufficient motivation. I got pretty badly lost my first night, but I got us all into our beds after a couple extra hours and never turned too soon again.
10. Use a torque wrench
Well, they're on loan.
11. Sharpen a knife
You'll think I'm kidding, but I'm not. I was too embarassed to ask for a razor, and my parents were too ... something ... to admit that I needed one, and I was being laughed at for the fuzz. There was only one answer. So, for the first two years of my shaving career I shaved with my pocketknife. Give me any stone, and I'll give you a blade with which you can strip your face - even if it's not the closest, most comfortable shave you'll ever have.
12. Perform CPR
I did not have to actually perform the 15/2 exercise, but while out in the desert I did correctly diagnose my motor sergeant's congestive heart failure and get him to medical attention without him ever knowing anything was wrong. I figured if I told him he was having a heart attack, he'd have a heart attack, so I quietly came up with one excuse after another to get him back to the unit medics and called the shot correctly. I've had all the classes, including knowing that they no longer recommend the rescue breathing.
13. Fillet a fish
Why would anyone do this to a perfectly good knife? Still, I have dressed just enough fish with someone else's knives to prove I can. Namely, I dressed out several hundred grunnion(?) running out at the beach one night for smoking. Fillet, though? Nope. They've got me there. Ain't gonna fillet no water-breathers.
14. Maneuver a car out of a skid
I've maneuvered a street motorcycle on pavement out of a two-wheel skid (among other, less-interesting types). I also laid the bike down three times, but only once showing off for a chick. Car's are child's play. I've driven for blocks without ever letting car come back out of a skid. My son has gotten to the point of saying, "You know, this NEVER happens when I ride with my sister or mother." Last time, it was because I was in a little bit of a hurry in the rain and dished the rear end out coming off the freeway. That could happen to anyone, of course. The thing that rattled him was that I was paying no attention when it happened, and my immediate, instinctive reaction on feeling the fishtail was to floor the gas. It was, of course, the right reaction but not a lot of people do it. FTR, it works in bobtail tractors, too. I got stuck 4 times the first weekend I drove in snow, and never have been stuck again.
15. Get a car unstuck
Well, here we are revisiting previous points again. I've "unstuck" Hummers (military version, not the civilian toys), Deuce and halfs, and a 10 ton+ Goer using nothing but a rope. Yeah, I can get my rig out of anything it can be gotten out of.
16. Back up data
Some people think this is too easy, but do you want it backed up to tape, disk, USB, SAN, NAS, or optical WORM? Do you want it backed on or off schedule? Full backups or deltas only? Error reporting? Or do you really want RAID striping and redundancy or maybe high availability clustering? Are you talking about disaster recovery or business continuity with failover? People who think this is easy just aren't thinking hard enough.
17. Paint a room
Presumably they want the drywall mudwork finished and the sheetrock taped, the surface primed, and the fixtures removed as opposed to just slapping on some paint. I can go either way.
18. Mix concrete
I didn't really mix the concrete for our house, I just helped pour it. But, I mixed the concrete to rebuild my front steps when they crumbled under the Columbus freeze/thaw cycle. I learned a couple things in the process, but don't remember what they were now. I guess I'll have to learn those lessons all over again when the next opportunity comes around.
19. Clean a bolt-action rifle
Hmmmm. I can armorer strip an m-16 and field-strip an m-60 machine gun, and clean both to IG standards. I wonder if that counts? Because all I own is a muzzle-loading rifle, a lever-action rifle, two revolvers, one semi-auto pistol and one cap and ball pistol. All but the semi-auto pistol were inherited (no fetish here) but I grew up shooting and probably always will enjoy it, even if I don't live in a place where it is cheap any more. I qualified expert marksman with an uncorrected astigmatism in my shooting eye. I will always wonder whether I would have qualified for the base shooting team had I known there were not really *supposed* to be 2 front sights to aim with.
20. Change oil and filter
If I'm nervous, I'll cut open the filter and read it like a CSI to tell whether my engine really has anything serious going wrong inside it.
21. Hook up an HDTV
Wouldn't know where to start, except by reading the manual. I'm probably going to use the mandated conversion to HD as my excuse to fall off the television landscape entirely.
22. Bleed brakes
Lot's of car stuff in this list. Anyone can bleed brakes with a partner. I can bleed them alone with a stick or with a pressure or vacuum bleeder. I'd have to read the procedure on any antilock brakes, but most people don't even know the procedures can be very different.
23. Paddle a canoe
Hehehe. For amusement, I have been known to drift down a lake in a 25+ mile-per-hour blow, and spend the next half-hour paddling back. If your nose drifts more than 5 degrees to the left or right, the wind will catch it and throw you around facing the wrong direction again. By the time you muscle your way back around, and get a good head of steam built up again you've lost 50 yards. River canoeing is a lot more exciting, of course, and I've done both. The J stroke is the only one I can call by name.
24. Fix a bike flat
Yeah. And car flats and truck flats, too. Though getting the split-rim apart on a truck tire has to be one of the most physical jobs around. Inflating a split rim after fixing it can actually be death-defying, too. But in a pinch, I know how to re-inflate a truck tire using ether and a match. I've never done it, and I'd hide behind a concrete wall if I did, but I know how.
25. Extend your wireless network
I assume they mean buying a repeater. This makes you a man? If they mean anything more interesting than that, then I fail in this criterion. More interesting would be to ask how many men know which wireless security protocol to use, and where to set up the password so your neighbors can't sniff out everything you're browsing or use your connection for free.
---
So, as long as being a man does not involve fish or TV, I can keep up with most of them according to Popular Mechanics. But I'd like to fire back.
For starters, Robert Heinlein had a MUCH better list of things a man should be able to do. I'd like to see how many of their macho men can keep up with this list.
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
Heinlein was a sinner's sinner, but he was a man's man, too. He'd make my shameless bragging above look like amateur hour, and I'm cool with that. He impressed me because he knew everything that mattered was warm and tender. If a man doesn't know that core fact, he's just a paper man - even if he can bench press his car.
Looking beyond even Heinlein's man, the warmest, tenderest, most precious thing on earth is the bride of our Lord. A brother in the Lord should also be able to:
Comfort the broken hearted
Resist sin
Mortify his own evil desires
Strengthen those who are tempted
Bless those who mistreat him
Submit himself quietly to the discipline of the Lord
Mourn with those who mourn
Laugh with those who laugh
Speak always with grace
May the Lord bless His sons and daughters
19 September, 2007
Are You As Smart As A Harvard Student?
Maybe you wouldn't have to be too impressed if you were.
The average college freshman fails this test of civic literacy. Unfortunately, so does the average college senior. The most telling fact of this whole experiment is how little better students did with 3 years of learning under their belts. Harvard seniors did best, scoring an average of D+ on the test.
There are 60 questions, and I found them quite challenging. I scored an 85%, missing 9 questions in all (detail supplied because it's not a test of math.) You can miss 25 questions and still be doing better than most college seniors.
Enjoy (if this is your kind of thing.)
http://www.americancivicliteracy.org./resources/quiz.aspx
HT: The Kruse Kronicle
To see all the results and guess at your own interpretations of what they mean, visit here:
http://www.americancivicliteracy.org./report/tables.html
The average college freshman fails this test of civic literacy. Unfortunately, so does the average college senior. The most telling fact of this whole experiment is how little better students did with 3 years of learning under their belts. Harvard seniors did best, scoring an average of D+ on the test.
There are 60 questions, and I found them quite challenging. I scored an 85%, missing 9 questions in all (detail supplied because it's not a test of math.) You can miss 25 questions and still be doing better than most college seniors.
Enjoy (if this is your kind of thing.)
http://www.americancivicliteracy.org./resources/quiz.aspx
HT: The Kruse Kronicle
To see all the results and guess at your own interpretations of what they mean, visit here:
http://www.americancivicliteracy.org./report/tables.html
19 July, 2007
The Rating Game
From the Dating Game, I guess.
I figured I'd play when KB posted this. Then I figured I'd wait until I'd put up a couple more posts to see whether I got better. Nope. 'Twould appear that I am not suitable for Christian ears. But then, most of the known world seems to have figured that out already.
I wonder how I'll rate after the Remarriage post falls off the front page.
As expected, once the Remarriage posted drifted away, my rating changed a little bit.
I figured I'd play when KB posted this. Then I figured I'd wait until I'd put up a couple more posts to see whether I got better. Nope. 'Twould appear that I am not suitable for Christian ears. But then, most of the known world seems to have figured that out already.
I wonder how I'll rate after the Remarriage post falls off the front page.
Mingle2 - Free Online Dating
As expected, once the Remarriage posted drifted away, my rating changed a little bit.
Mingle2 - Online Dating
13 July, 2007
8 Random Facts, Well, Random Facts
The random facts meme is making a second round, and I've been tagged again by KB and Weekend Fisher. That's pretty cool, and thanks! I cannot come up with 8 things about myself that are both random and interesting, though. And it's not the "random" part that's giving me fits. Yeah, I'm a big draw at parties.
I figured I'd go for one random story instead, and then go entomb myself in amber after I capture in text just how blazingly dull I really am. Maybe I'll be able to compete with billion year old mosquitoes some day.
I bought a pair of pants the other day. They were green. (See, the random part is pretty easy.) I was replacing my other pair of green pants. This was kind of a normal pair of green pants, but it deserved to be replaced. Foremost, it deserved to be replaced because I have green socks, and I would hate to throw them away just for lack of green pants. More to the point, I would be physically unable to throw them away. They're still socks, so why should I treat them as garbage?
Socks need to be thrown away only when they have holes in them. And by holes, I don't mean the little holes that show up where your big toenail meets the shoe leather and wears that little hole in the top toe of the sock. That hole gets whip-stitched and back into the washing machine the sock goes. Socks need throwing away when the hole cannot be whip-stitched like when the hole's in the bottom of the heel or up in the part of the sock you pull on. I guess they call that the top of the sock.
I remember throwing away a pair of socks once. I think it was about three years ago.
Other than that, the natural deselection process of drying the socks and one disappearing every now and again is my only natural sock disposal instinct. Whenever half of a perfectly good pair of socks (and they're all perfectly good, right) disappears, the survivor goes into the bottom drawer to await the reappearance of its partner. Right now, I have about the same number of socks in the top and bottom drawers.
4 of the socks (that would be 2 pairs of them) in the top drawer, though, are green. They have not lost their partners (so they know what to do, skip to their lou their darling) so they cannot find their way to the bottom drawer. But if they're in the top drawer, then I need a pair of pants to go with them.
The pair of pants that has gone with them for a long time is the green pair. It's made of some kind of odd plasticy knit substance. It was a scary thing for me to pull them out of the dryer the first time, because irons never mix well with odd plasticy knit clothing. I've tried it before, and the iron gets kind of black and plasticy on the bottom while the clothing becomes a little more see-through than I'm comfortable with in little triangular shaped areas with black edges.
And I had never failed to iron a piece of clothing that I wear while being paid a salary.
The green plasticy pants said they did not need to be ironed.
Somebody was obviously either stupid, ridiculously optimistic, or didn't know me. Of course the odds of the latter are about 6.6 billion to 5 or so, and since I know the 5 people who know me don't make green pants, we'll assume pants makers are part of the 6.6 billion. That assumption's much more charitable than the idiot thing anyway.
But, I was up to the task. I figured out (quite brilliantly, if I do say so myself) that if I always ironed the green pants first, I could set the iron low enough that it would not create that smell that meant a premature purchase of new green pants. Then, when it was time to iron the other pants, I could turn the iron up to its customary setting of, "Max steam/heat/cotton/toast dark," and get down to business.
That worked for a period of months or years or something. I really have no idea when I acquired those pants, but I know I got my first salaried job in 1998.
My pants were wrinkle free when I was done - rest assured of that.
After a while, much longer ago that I can accurately recall, one of the cats had a moment of affection for me. You can always tell when a cat is feeling the love, because it hurts you somehow. In this case, it pulled up a couple loops of plasticy thread from the front of the thigh of those pants. That was the last time the cats were allowed in my lap while I was dressed for earning a salary unless I have a pillow in my lap. There's always a pillow somewhere near the computer now just in case I need to blog and get a cat to quit rubbing up against first one ankle, then the other, then the first, then the other, then the first, then the other, then the first, then the other, then the first, then the other, then the first, then the other, then the first, then the other, then the first, then the other, then the first, then the other, then the first, then the other, then the first, then the other, then the first, then the other, then the first, ... QUIT IT, CAT!!! Get up here!
So, my loopy, plasticy, green pants served me faithfully for an unknown period of time when I noticed that the creases in my other cottony pants had see-through creases. It was a funny thing to note. I went to iron them for the XXXXth time (It was certainly more than the Xth time, but the XXth time looks funny and it certainly was not the XXXth time, so it must have been the XXXXth), and somehow I held them up to the light in an unusual way. All the threads that go up and down the pants were fine except right at the crease. There were no up and down threads there. There were only right to left threads, and if I put my eye up close enough, I could watch TV through the crease in my pants.
That explained why it was getting easier to iron the crease into the pants, but it probably was not appropriate for someone who was earning an actual salary. I mean, for an hourly worker who gets paid only for what he actually does and for every hour that he is doing it, it might make sense to spend more time doing stuff than making sure that his clothes all have all the usual threads. But for a salaried worker who gets paid for breathing, and is expected to do lots of it, but gets paid the same no matter how much breathing he actually does, it's probably more important to have the accepted thread count all the way around the pants leg.
So, I bought new pants to go with the green ones. And the new pants said "no-iron" also. Which put me in a quandry. The iron might be too hot by the time I got to the third pair of no-iron pants. I gnawed on my toothpick and scratched my noggin as I cogitated on this little horse nugget. And that was pretty much the last time I ever ironed a pair of pants. I decided no-iron was going to have to prove it, and never looked back.
Over the weeks or years or months, or whatever it's been, that little green pair of pants kept right on keeping on even without being ironed every other week.
Then the zipper got stuck in the down position. That was probably just a few months ago. I stood there in the stall at work, wondering how I was going to earn my salary without leaving the bathroom - then comforting myself that the word, "earn," never really applies to salary. Then magically the zipper went back up. Phew. Over the weeks, I learned that if I kind of held the right panel up a little higher and pulled to the left, the zipper would usually cooperate eventually.
I considered putting a whip-stitch in the zipper so that I could never zip it down past the point that it seemed to stick. I had green thread, of course, so it was an option. But who knows whether something bad might happen, and so far I had always managed to outsmart the zipper when it mattered, so the needle and thread stayed put. Now, you might ascribe that to procrastination, but if you did I'd have to award you some kind of prize for astuteness, so please don't.
Besides, I was having bigger problems with my keys falling out of the hole in the front left pocket. If the keys would fall out completely, it wouldn't be that bad, but they never did that. They fell half-way out, then kind of got hung up so I could neither get them out the bottom of my pants leg, nor out of the top of the pocket. One day it got to be a little too much for even me, so I flopped the pocket up out of the top of my pants and deployed the sewing kit. Yes, right there at work. Doesn't everyone keep a sewing kit at work? I carefully rolled the pocket up so that the hole itself was inside the roll, and then whip-stitched the roll in place.
I think maybe the whip-stitch is more parts philosophy than sewing technique, but that's probably another post - a vaguely insulting post with lots of discordant undertones.
Anyway, the front left pocket was now shorter than it was before, but my keys stayed in it. It felt so strange at times that I actually considered putting my keys into my front right pocket.
No really. I gave it real thought. I bet you didn't know I was flexible enough to consider putting my keys into my front right pocket instead of my front left pocket, but I am. I'm an unpredictable wildman, really. Of course, I decided against it, but only for the most rational of reasons. If I put my keys into my front right pocket, I would have to deal with the frustration of first switching my laptop case from my left hand to my right hand, so that I could get the keys out of my left pocket, then remembering that the keys were in my right pocket because these are the green pants and switching the laptop back to my left hand to grab the keys, then switching the laptop back because I always unlock the car with my left hand anyway. See? It just wasn't worth the psychic investment and effort to start keeping my keys in the wrong pocket.
And all day long my left leg would be telling my head that I had lost my keys, and my head would not know to ask my right leg whether the keys were actually over there, so I would start patting myself randomly wondering where my keys are. And just about the time people started looking at me, wondering whether I was going to sprout tomatoes from the top of my head or something, I'd remember that the keys were just in the wrong pocket and I'd have to get that sheepish look and explain that I "thought I'd lost my keys, but they were here all along. Ooops." Heck, just having the shorter pocket made my left leg ask my head where my keys had gone a few times a day. But my head could always kind of tell my leg to at least look twice before complaining, and then it and my head and me would all remember that my pocket was a little shorter and we'd all share a chuckle together, and nobody else would be looking at me like tomatoes were going to grow out of my head.
So my green pants that were no longer being ironed, and that had a couple of loops pulled into them by the affectionate cat, and that had the sticking zipper, and that had the short pocket went with me to work two days every two weeks and we earned our salaries in relative peace and comfort.
The odd thing is that all the other pants that said, "no-iron," now need ironing. What's that all about? The green pants still don't need to be ironed, but the tan pants come out of the dryer looking kind of like I lost my pillow in the middle of the night and I decided to just sleep on my pants instead. Only I'd gone to bed wearing them, so they were kind of wrinkly anyway when I took them off to use them as a pillow. Then I had a dream about fighting a dog-sized origami monster, but I won when I folded it down to the size of a "forever" postage stamp, woke up in a sweaty mess, realized I was late for work, threw them on, and ran out the door.
I figure they were "no-iron" because of some chemical they laced the threads with, and that after a mere year or two the chemical all goes away. Even drying the pants with two of those magical dryer sheet thingies didn't help.
So I had to decide whether to start ironing my no-iron pants again, or to stop at a store and leave money there in exchange for new pants. That's a painful experience for me, so I thought the best thing to do was to sleep on the question for a few more months. Eventually the answer would come clear to me.
Then the front left pocket of the green pants got another hole in them.
So I went out and bought another pair of green pants. The new green pants have an expando waist band in case I quit playing tennis or something. What a dumb idea.
Anyway, I figure it was about time for a new pair of pants.
Like I said it's pretty easy to come up with random stuff but really hard to come up with anything interesting. Now. Where do I keep that embalming amber?
I figured I'd go for one random story instead, and then go entomb myself in amber after I capture in text just how blazingly dull I really am. Maybe I'll be able to compete with billion year old mosquitoes some day.
I bought a pair of pants the other day. They were green. (See, the random part is pretty easy.) I was replacing my other pair of green pants. This was kind of a normal pair of green pants, but it deserved to be replaced. Foremost, it deserved to be replaced because I have green socks, and I would hate to throw them away just for lack of green pants. More to the point, I would be physically unable to throw them away. They're still socks, so why should I treat them as garbage?
Socks need to be thrown away only when they have holes in them. And by holes, I don't mean the little holes that show up where your big toenail meets the shoe leather and wears that little hole in the top toe of the sock. That hole gets whip-stitched and back into the washing machine the sock goes. Socks need throwing away when the hole cannot be whip-stitched like when the hole's in the bottom of the heel or up in the part of the sock you pull on. I guess they call that the top of the sock.
I remember throwing away a pair of socks once. I think it was about three years ago.
Other than that, the natural deselection process of drying the socks and one disappearing every now and again is my only natural sock disposal instinct. Whenever half of a perfectly good pair of socks (and they're all perfectly good, right) disappears, the survivor goes into the bottom drawer to await the reappearance of its partner. Right now, I have about the same number of socks in the top and bottom drawers.
4 of the socks (that would be 2 pairs of them) in the top drawer, though, are green. They have not lost their partners (so they know what to do, skip to their lou their darling) so they cannot find their way to the bottom drawer. But if they're in the top drawer, then I need a pair of pants to go with them.
The pair of pants that has gone with them for a long time is the green pair. It's made of some kind of odd plasticy knit substance. It was a scary thing for me to pull them out of the dryer the first time, because irons never mix well with odd plasticy knit clothing. I've tried it before, and the iron gets kind of black and plasticy on the bottom while the clothing becomes a little more see-through than I'm comfortable with in little triangular shaped areas with black edges.
And I had never failed to iron a piece of clothing that I wear while being paid a salary.
The green plasticy pants said they did not need to be ironed.
Somebody was obviously either stupid, ridiculously optimistic, or didn't know me. Of course the odds of the latter are about 6.6 billion to 5 or so, and since I know the 5 people who know me don't make green pants, we'll assume pants makers are part of the 6.6 billion. That assumption's much more charitable than the idiot thing anyway.
But, I was up to the task. I figured out (quite brilliantly, if I do say so myself) that if I always ironed the green pants first, I could set the iron low enough that it would not create that smell that meant a premature purchase of new green pants. Then, when it was time to iron the other pants, I could turn the iron up to its customary setting of, "Max steam/heat/cotton/toast dark," and get down to business.
That worked for a period of months or years or something. I really have no idea when I acquired those pants, but I know I got my first salaried job in 1998.
My pants were wrinkle free when I was done - rest assured of that.
After a while, much longer ago that I can accurately recall, one of the cats had a moment of affection for me. You can always tell when a cat is feeling the love, because it hurts you somehow. In this case, it pulled up a couple loops of plasticy thread from the front of the thigh of those pants. That was the last time the cats were allowed in my lap while I was dressed for earning a salary unless I have a pillow in my lap. There's always a pillow somewhere near the computer now just in case I need to blog and get a cat to quit rubbing up against first one ankle, then the other, then the first, then the other, then the first, then the other, then the first, then the other, then the first, then the other, then the first, then the other, then the first, then the other, then the first, then the other, then the first, then the other, then the first, then the other, then the first, then the other, then the first, then the other, then the first, ... QUIT IT, CAT!!! Get up here!
So, my loopy, plasticy, green pants served me faithfully for an unknown period of time when I noticed that the creases in my other cottony pants had see-through creases. It was a funny thing to note. I went to iron them for the XXXXth time (It was certainly more than the Xth time, but the XXth time looks funny and it certainly was not the XXXth time, so it must have been the XXXXth), and somehow I held them up to the light in an unusual way. All the threads that go up and down the pants were fine except right at the crease. There were no up and down threads there. There were only right to left threads, and if I put my eye up close enough, I could watch TV through the crease in my pants.
That explained why it was getting easier to iron the crease into the pants, but it probably was not appropriate for someone who was earning an actual salary. I mean, for an hourly worker who gets paid only for what he actually does and for every hour that he is doing it, it might make sense to spend more time doing stuff than making sure that his clothes all have all the usual threads. But for a salaried worker who gets paid for breathing, and is expected to do lots of it, but gets paid the same no matter how much breathing he actually does, it's probably more important to have the accepted thread count all the way around the pants leg.
So, I bought new pants to go with the green ones. And the new pants said "no-iron" also. Which put me in a quandry. The iron might be too hot by the time I got to the third pair of no-iron pants. I gnawed on my toothpick and scratched my noggin as I cogitated on this little horse nugget. And that was pretty much the last time I ever ironed a pair of pants. I decided no-iron was going to have to prove it, and never looked back.
Over the weeks or years or months, or whatever it's been, that little green pair of pants kept right on keeping on even without being ironed every other week.
Then the zipper got stuck in the down position. That was probably just a few months ago. I stood there in the stall at work, wondering how I was going to earn my salary without leaving the bathroom - then comforting myself that the word, "earn," never really applies to salary. Then magically the zipper went back up. Phew. Over the weeks, I learned that if I kind of held the right panel up a little higher and pulled to the left, the zipper would usually cooperate eventually.
I considered putting a whip-stitch in the zipper so that I could never zip it down past the point that it seemed to stick. I had green thread, of course, so it was an option. But who knows whether something bad might happen, and so far I had always managed to outsmart the zipper when it mattered, so the needle and thread stayed put. Now, you might ascribe that to procrastination, but if you did I'd have to award you some kind of prize for astuteness, so please don't.
Besides, I was having bigger problems with my keys falling out of the hole in the front left pocket. If the keys would fall out completely, it wouldn't be that bad, but they never did that. They fell half-way out, then kind of got hung up so I could neither get them out the bottom of my pants leg, nor out of the top of the pocket. One day it got to be a little too much for even me, so I flopped the pocket up out of the top of my pants and deployed the sewing kit. Yes, right there at work. Doesn't everyone keep a sewing kit at work? I carefully rolled the pocket up so that the hole itself was inside the roll, and then whip-stitched the roll in place.
I think maybe the whip-stitch is more parts philosophy than sewing technique, but that's probably another post - a vaguely insulting post with lots of discordant undertones.
Anyway, the front left pocket was now shorter than it was before, but my keys stayed in it. It felt so strange at times that I actually considered putting my keys into my front right pocket.
No really. I gave it real thought. I bet you didn't know I was flexible enough to consider putting my keys into my front right pocket instead of my front left pocket, but I am. I'm an unpredictable wildman, really. Of course, I decided against it, but only for the most rational of reasons. If I put my keys into my front right pocket, I would have to deal with the frustration of first switching my laptop case from my left hand to my right hand, so that I could get the keys out of my left pocket, then remembering that the keys were in my right pocket because these are the green pants and switching the laptop back to my left hand to grab the keys, then switching the laptop back because I always unlock the car with my left hand anyway. See? It just wasn't worth the psychic investment and effort to start keeping my keys in the wrong pocket.
And all day long my left leg would be telling my head that I had lost my keys, and my head would not know to ask my right leg whether the keys were actually over there, so I would start patting myself randomly wondering where my keys are. And just about the time people started looking at me, wondering whether I was going to sprout tomatoes from the top of my head or something, I'd remember that the keys were just in the wrong pocket and I'd have to get that sheepish look and explain that I "thought I'd lost my keys, but they were here all along. Ooops." Heck, just having the shorter pocket made my left leg ask my head where my keys had gone a few times a day. But my head could always kind of tell my leg to at least look twice before complaining, and then it and my head and me would all remember that my pocket was a little shorter and we'd all share a chuckle together, and nobody else would be looking at me like tomatoes were going to grow out of my head.
So my green pants that were no longer being ironed, and that had a couple of loops pulled into them by the affectionate cat, and that had the sticking zipper, and that had the short pocket went with me to work two days every two weeks and we earned our salaries in relative peace and comfort.
The odd thing is that all the other pants that said, "no-iron," now need ironing. What's that all about? The green pants still don't need to be ironed, but the tan pants come out of the dryer looking kind of like I lost my pillow in the middle of the night and I decided to just sleep on my pants instead. Only I'd gone to bed wearing them, so they were kind of wrinkly anyway when I took them off to use them as a pillow. Then I had a dream about fighting a dog-sized origami monster, but I won when I folded it down to the size of a "forever" postage stamp, woke up in a sweaty mess, realized I was late for work, threw them on, and ran out the door.
I figure they were "no-iron" because of some chemical they laced the threads with, and that after a mere year or two the chemical all goes away. Even drying the pants with two of those magical dryer sheet thingies didn't help.
So I had to decide whether to start ironing my no-iron pants again, or to stop at a store and leave money there in exchange for new pants. That's a painful experience for me, so I thought the best thing to do was to sleep on the question for a few more months. Eventually the answer would come clear to me.
Then the front left pocket of the green pants got another hole in them.
So I went out and bought another pair of green pants. The new green pants have an expando waist band in case I quit playing tennis or something. What a dumb idea.
Anyway, I figure it was about time for a new pair of pants.
Like I said it's pretty easy to come up with random stuff but really hard to come up with anything interesting. Now. Where do I keep that embalming amber?
08 May, 2007
Crazy 8
I have to quote these rules from KB's site.
- Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
- People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
- At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
- Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
Then I have to tell you that I'm going to break them religiously. Sorry, I'm barely socially confident enough to post 8 random facts about myself, much less ask others to do so. Count that as a bonus fact. :-)
Food: I love food. I know of nothing I won't eat, though I don't like sweet potatoes much, and could live without eating fish again. Basically, if it's food and it's front of me, it won't be either for long.
Family: Not one member of my family lives within 6 hours of any other member past the age of majority. We are not a social lot. On my father's side, they were all migrant workers and on my mother's side - well, my great grandma divorced and took two children from New York to Los Angeles before that kind of thing was cool.
Exercise: Aerobics bore me stiff in all their incarnations. So, I do mostly bodyweight stuff supplemented with an elastic band. I do one where I put my right foot on a desk and my left elbow on the floor, and raise and lower my body, for example. I found out that my right knee was still weak moving laterally, so I am forcing it to start contributing again. I think it may cure my need for the ACL brace 10 years after my surgery.
Profession: When I decided to join the army as a mechanic I said, "It's worth it, because at least they cannot make me a clerk." You guessed it. 6 months as a tool-room clerk, 1 1/4 years as the battalion maintenance management clerk, 6 months as the motor sergeant's clerk and 1 1/2 years as a sergeant - a glorified clerk. Now, I'm in charge of making programmers act like clerks. Things are better now, since I'm beginning to finally give up all hope.
Obsession: I have dedications and obsessions. I was obsessed with Formula One racing for 10 years. I hardly ever missed a race, and knew all the gossip. One day - literally, one day - I decided I was done, and I have not seen a single race since. No obsession is safe with me. I could drop tennis tomorrow, and never look back. You don't believe me, but believe me. My dedications are all rock-solid, though. It's unusual.
Faith: Hmmm. Random? All the rest were pretty easy, but this one is so serious-ish. OK. It was really, Really, REALLY hard to grow up as a fundamentalist charismatic who experienced no miracles. I wouldn't count it as a miracle unless I was sure God had done it, and I never was. Looking back, I'm sure I was right. He didn't do anything miraculous in "that" way in my life. I've spent decades trying to remember that this doesn't prove I'm inferior. I may be inferior, but this doesn't prove it. I mean, I never even spoke in tongues, and after 10 years surrounded by those who never didn't one begins to doubt one's faith. I made up for it on the fundamentalist ultra-legalism side, though, so I had that going for me. ;-)
Ailments: All self-inflicted. I have cut my eyebrow wide open with my own tennis racket - then did the same thing 2 months later. When I started back with tennis just after the divorce, I injured my abdominals. Next year, I injured my shoulder. Year after, I injured my elbow. Last year I injured my wrist. This year, I seem to be working on injuring my off-shoulder. Trying to generate rotational inertia against which to lever, I am throwing my left arm backwards so violently that I am in danger of an RSI injury there. I know, most of you would stop doing that. I will not. I will, instead, spend extra time lifting weights to condition the shoulder against the strain and go on hitting my brutal forehand at anyone who will return it.
Games: I am in search of the ultimate 15 minute game, one that allows brilliant insight but punishes oversights mercilessly. Timed chess works great, but it's so hard to find anyone who doesn't play way above or below me. I can play "Minefield" on a Windows computer for a half-hour, and never even notice the time went by. It's a great game but solitaire games are, shall we say, unsatisfying.
I hope you're still awake. :-)
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