The call me Mister Scratchy

I'm growing my beard again. After nearly half a year going as "Baby Face Buchheit" (and here Steve cringes hoping that name won't stick), it's time to get my whiskers back. They're now long enough that they move independent of the skin beneath, and while still scratchy I'm on my way to softness. Smooching shall restart shortly thereafter.

Told the guy to order the furnace last night. Here's a link to what I'm getting, in case you care. Energy star certified, single stage, 4-speed blower, 40,000 BTU, hot-point ignition, aluminized steel heat exchangers (lifetime warrantee), 95.5% AFUE, a slight improvement on what I currently have. I thought about upgrading to a DC motor, but the cost differential didn't make it worth it, the four-speed blower should help though (current furnace is on or off). Only a 3% increase in efficiency won't be giving us a good ROI, but it's higher than the other options we had. It'll blow about 25% more air (at full blower speed) than out previous, and the BTU's are the same (I have a small house, the furnace is centrally located, it's kept us warm enough), so we should be as warm as we want to be. As I'm sure you've all noticed I over-think and over research all my big purchases. This is the fastest I've ever spent $2822 of my own money, so part of my brain is still wary. But things are going to be very tight this fall as far as budget goes. Good thing I cut my own hair.

Last night was not only our general council meeting, but also the County Commissioners were at our place beforehand. The mayor and I gave them a piece of our minds concerning the timing of rolling out the new MARCS radio system. That was somewhat cathartic, but since we are the only community in the SE corner of Ashtabula that has our own police department, the other township trustees could only give us some moral support (and it was probably the first they had heard about this). There's another meeting later this month that we can go and express our displeasure and desire to slow down the transfer (so we can get past the New Year, where we can qualify for grants, also new fiscal year).

It's been a while since I've talked about the big D. I'm doing better, thanks. At least now I feel stressed, instead of thinking, "Why am I doing/behaving like this? I must be stressed out." Feeling the emotions again is a good thing. I sometimes dip back in to big D, like slipping beneath the waves. Fortunately those episodes only last for a day or two. I'm sure I could be doing better with talk therapy, but when do I have the time for that (see stress comment before)? So we continue limping along, but we're better. It's easier to see myself objectively, and to perk myself up. Although I still have behavior that one part of my brain is yelling, "Don't do that, do go there, stop that, don't get that extra helping, etc" but I still end up doing it anyway. Although the other night I did stop one stress-behavior/bad habit from continuing. So progress on that front. I've only called myself an idiot a few times in the past week, so progress there too.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.

The Hadron Super Collider is online. Protons have been fired. The world is still here.

Although, you know, no collisions have occurred. Yet. So there's still a hope that the world will end and we won't have to watch or listen to the screaming and gnashing of teeth that is sure to proceed our Presidential Election. So, Higgs Boson or annihilation, either way it would be cool.

This reminds me that a few years back I read an article on how some astrophysicists were looking at some seismic anomalies. How the seismographs recorded some highly local events that look like an asteroid strike, of the size that would leave a crater, but no crater is found. And that at predictable times, there is another similar event on another part of the globe. How it looks like something with decent mass had passed through the Earth. While they didn't quite know what it could be, one of the theories is micro or mini black holes passing through the Earth.

So even if the Hadron Collider could create a micro-black hole, it'll only have the mass of a few protons. Not really something to get all bothered about. You experience more gravitational pull from the computer screen you're looking at right now (which is throwing off a few hundred thousand protons and is made up of more).

Which brings me to the alternative title of this post. "OMG, it's made of mass!" (Here's a link to a video that explains why some of us are giggling). And here is another link, you know, just in case something bad might happen (just check that URL out, physics humor, love it).

Boy, you're gonna carry that weight, carry that weight a long time

Well, Hanna moved through the NE today, so now I'm thinking about everybody I know there, including family. Hope you're all doing well.

Coverage of the storm seems to have been blown away by the Freddie Mac/Fanny Mae announcement today. Nothing to see here. The economy is doing well. Don't worry. No need to panic. Everything is under control. Oh, and by the way, Paulson punted. Did you see that. He said it was up to the next president and next congress to fix all this. Yo-ho there Mr. Paulson, me thinks this President and Congress has three more months they could be working on this. But, true to form, the neo-cons can get us in trouble, they just have no friggin' idea how to get us out. You know, the old-cons actually had plans, neo-cons have white-papers. And then the line about, "we're preparing for this action, but only if we really need to." Uhm, yeah, heard that one before. Like when Congress gave approval for the funds to back up this move. Oh, and FDIC took control of another bank (that makes 14 now?). Happy Christmas.

Mowed the lawn, caught up on design work, did a little home maintenance, read all the brochures on the furnace and developed my questions, turned over the compost piles, and lazed about some more.

Not really prepared for the week, but when is that anything different. Hope you all had a good weekend.

Weekend Researching

We used the dishwasher for the first time last night. It's much quieter than our old one. And its one and off cycling was a little disconcerting (but the manual says that it's normal operation).

Going through the specs of the heaters today. They mostly seem about the same, although the Airflow CFM ratings are different (one is 800, the other 1200). I can't find much about this (you know, except for cubic feet per minute and check Manual J for specifications, which then have to be run through a computer program). Time to pull the old manual and see what it says. Sigh.

Lawn needs mowing, but it rained a lot last night, which we needed. Hanna is battering up the East Coast. It's over NJ right now, so I'm hoping that all the people I know there are fine (Hi, Rog, yeah, I need to email you). Hope all of you are safe.

Some More Random Things (maybe I should call myself Random Steve from now on)

Most bestest SPAM headline EVAR?! "Shofar Blowout."
::falls on floor laughing::

Still sick, it's moved to my chest and I'm coughing more than sneezing (cough is from drainage, not in my lungs).

Does anybody else find it cute when the talking heads on Fox News bash "the media" for not covering "these stories" or for never talking about "these issues"? Clue-bat to Fox News, you are "the media." By talking about it, you can't claim the media isn't talking about it. Duh! (said with 3 syllables) And after the roll-outs at the campaign, the Right continues in their persecution complex and pre-emptively fires off that the "liberal media" is attacking them. Uh, yeah, seriously, there's drugs that can help with that.

In case you didn't see The Daily Show Wednesday night or the Thursday replays (when I catch it) you missed something special. Cool guy and all around hoopy frood Dave Kletcha has a clip over on his LJ blog. Check it out.

Also cool guy Matt Staggs informs the sad crowd that he's no longer going to do his linkfest of love he called bookosphere. He says it takes too much time. Fair cop. But I'm going to miss it (like I have the time to read all those links). Thankfully we still have Jay Lake's link salad.

Way too many of my friends have had sales lately, and I'm remiss in calling them all out. Mer, Todd, Sam, and everybody else, I'm a bad blog friend. Sorry about that. While I'm catching up, my favorite littlebird Camille continues to blaze a trail through the writing and publishing business and posting about "slushdates."

Also, brain on fire from a comment. Have written a hundred plus words of potential rewrite of story. It might make the story more kick ass (as long as it keeps going).

Well people like that reform. Maybe we should get us some.

Because I'm drugged up, mixed up, clogged up, and somewhat plugged up, my thoughts wheel through arcs within arcs and I'm freely associating.

edit Yes, the dishwasher is in and it looks fabulous. He used a PVC connection for the water (WTF? I could have done that). So no more water on the floor. Yeah! end edit

So, do you think sometime tonight at the Republican Convention that there will be a moment where they shake off their blinders and realize that they've been in charge of the Whitehouse for seven years, and except for the past year and a half, were in control of Congress for fourteen years. And that all this "grabbing the establishment by the scruff of the neck and shaking" or "changing the way business is done" or "changing the permanent bureaucracy" any of the other "we're gonna start the revolution" kind of talk is directed directly at themselves? No, probably not. They spike the drinks kinda hard. Winters are long in Minnesota.

Then there's the new Microsoft commercial, the one where they tout the "new system," Mojave, only to reveal, after people say "wow, it's sick," that it's really Vista (Slashdot). Notice how none of those people are actually using the OS, they're only looking at the screen (the new kicker screen-saver maybe?). Sure, it looks good, but you can't use it. I just found that very funny.

On top of that is the Duracell commercial with the mother and child at the park. The kid is right behind her one second, and when the mother turns around he gone. She then uses the BrickHouse Child Locator to find the child before she blows a gasket (yes, I know, this is one of those fears and I shouldn't be making light of it, it's the drugs talking)(Reuters article on how the BHCL sold out after the commercial start). Anybody else key into Star Wars Episode IV where Luke comes back from dinner and uses the wand to shock CP3O and he pops up from behind the evaporator? Or is it just me?

And finally, apparently Sarah Palin is a freeze-dried wack-a-loon. No, this isn't about her kids. It's about the Iraq War, the one her son should be training for, but instead has a staring role at the convention. Then there's her lying about the environment so polar bears wouldn't be classified as a threatened species. Well, I guess given the previous administration denial complex this would be considered a Presidential Qualification.

And now it's time to take some more drugs. Oh Nyquil, how we love thee.

Five random things making a blog post (the brain-fog edition)

I have a cold. It's one of those summer head colds and I blame all the little precious germ factories I was around over the weekend. Those little booger-headed kids left behind their demon spore, and I had the unfortunate luck to pick it up. Bastards. But oh the joys of Nyquil.

Note to Joe Biden, you're going to come off as the dick in the debate, no matter what you do or how nice you try to be. Accept that you'll be the bad guy, you can't escape it. Embrace it and mop-n-glo the floor with Palin.

Also, listening to the delegates and the speeches at the RNC (not much, after awhile I can't stand the spinning of the room), wow. Persecution complex much? Seriously, you all, get help. And people talk about Steve Job's reality distortion field, I can see the waves of reality distortion spreading out from the convention like those mutagen waves that came off the Statue of Liberty in the original X-Men movie.

They're supposed to install the new dishwasher today. We are to be first on the list. We'll see. We're slowly working toward the new furnace. We have two options, one just below $3000, one a little over. Because we have horizontal venting, we need to go with a high-efficiency unit, which is okay because that's the way we would have gone anyway. The smaller unit, which will require the most sheet-metal work, but is also the less expensive unit, is also Energy-Star compliant, where as the larger unit isn't At first blush, both will put out the same BTUs and move the same amount of air. I need to look at the technical papers a little closer.

Did I mention I have a cold? Oh, yeah, I did. Little booger-faces. This weekend I don't have anything scheduled (that I know of) so I'm going to spend most of it relaxing. The past few weekends have all been a little crazy. I need to finish up some plans for the fall, re-examine the budget. In the mean time I have to mow the lawn (damn rain last week), clean up, and prepare for the general council meeting next week.

Story Bone

There was another political post that came out, but I'll spare you all. Instead, here's a line in search of a story. The two had nothing in common.

"The difference between being put on a pedestal and being lynched is where they drape the rope."

I, for one, welcome our new Babelfish overlords.

Because they provide gems like this one. (tip o' the hat to DanB, good friend, frequent IMer, and good Dad by warping his kids humor). Groked from here.

Toking

Writing is like smoking. It's something a lot of people do, and some aren't proud of it. It's something that at first you're going to do in secret. Not everybody does it well. As you get better at it and stop choking all the time, you start doing it out in the open. Eventually you just don't care who knows that you do it.

Most of your family will try to dissuade you from it. They'll tout the health hazards, that all writers are known drunks and will die from it. Or they die from suicide. With love they'll implore you to quit before it's too late.

You'll start with a few hundred words a day, or every other day. You'll only do it socially, maybe a witty blog comment. Eventually you'll move on up to three thousand or so words a day. You just won't feel right unless you get those words out. And you won't care if anybody else is around. Then you'll start skipping social gatherings to get the words down. You'll write with the door closed so nobody will see you.

Being a writer means you're a social pariah. The rest of the world may accept you into what you'll call your "day job." But soon you'll find yourself huddling with other writers, out in the cold, just to get away and get your fix. You'll take little breaks at work, nothing big, just like other people have a cup of coffee or lunch with friends. Instead you'll be writing. You'll miss calls, people will ask where you've gone. And when you go back to normal society you'll reek of writing. You can't wash it out of your clothes. It gets into your hair and skin. Even using soaps with high perfume levels, someone standing close to you will be able to detect the scent of writing pouring from you.

Not everybody can be a writer. It takes a certain aptitude to start off, not everybody has that. There's a short adjustment period as you become acclimated to writing. This is where peer pressure comes in. They'll tell you to just try it one more time. It'll be better the third time around. And by your fourth ride with that monkey on your back it's too late. You're hooked.

There are also small skills one has to learn to master the art of writing, and once internalized you don't need to think of them openly. Your hands will automatically hover over a keyboard in perfect position. You'll search for the uses of "was" in manuscripts almost automatically.

Just like cigarette smokers have their brands, so do writers. Only you'll call them genres. And you'll stick in your genre as best as possible, enjoying the smoky flavor. But if you need that fix and you're out of your genre, you'll bum anybody else's to get that buzz. Sure, you'll long for that cool menthol of high fantasy but you'll suck on the harsh unfiltered memoir if that's all you can find.

You'll start denying yourself other things to continue your writing habit. You'll justify these deprivations with, "I only need to do this for a while, and then I can write whenever I want to." Food, friends, going out and having a good time will all be secondary to you so you can stay at home and write. You won't buy that gallon of milk, but blow you're last five dollars on reams of paper.

And then you'll know. It's got you hard, baby. You'll fool yourself by saying you can quit anytime you want. Ken Folliet quit after writing four novels. There are quitters all around you. But you know it's too late for you. You need that hit in the morning, after meals, and right before you go to bed. You're hooked, baby, and it's set deep.

If you're able to break your writing habit, you'll always think about writing. If you're around other writers you'll feel the itch that only hypergraphia can scratch. You'll find yourself getting into the same habits again. Going into stores and seeing blank pads of paper (lined or unlined) you'll feel that need. Your hands will involuntarily start making circle movements, plots and characters will enter your head unbidden. And it's only a matter of time before you start up again. It'll just be one. You'll stop after one.

Then, once you do it again, you'll realize that this is what's been missing. Like the best lover of your life and you get to cheat with her all the time. Once you're a writer, you're always a writer. You can only stay in recovery, you'll never be cured of it.

What the Duck Said

Hope you all had a good weekend. Mine was exceptionally busy (and that's a comparative statement after a summer of busy weekends). Spent Saturday at Mom's place. Grilled hamburgers and hotdogs.

Grilling is a full contact sport in my family. Fortunately I was grilling before some people showed up, so I only had to suffer from my mother's criticism ("There's a lot of smoke coming out of that grill"). I wasn't watching my fire closely, so the burgers got a bit crisp on the outside. They were still juicy inside, so I didn't have to relinquish my grilling spatula. Didn't get home until about 1:30am. After long drives I can't fall asleep quickly, so it was a very long day.

We went to the Great Geauga County Fair on Sunday. It wasn't our normal day, so things were kind of off. There wasn't really anything at the grandstand we wanted to see (although tractor pulls are fun, once you realize your hearing is important, they aren't that fun).

We always go around the animal barns, Bette pets the cows and I get the annual, ritualized arguments of "Pygmy Goats (llamas, alpacas, mini donkeys) aren't really farm animals." We're not allowed to have livestock. Zoning. Bette misses having big animals around. Although in the poultry barn there was a guy holding a duck. It was a very Gary Larsen moment.

We had milkshakes made of whole milk (yum), lemonade made by "Cocktail" wannabees, got felt up by the politicians, looked at all the geegaws for sale, avoided the carnies, and walked ourselves silly. I did take pictures, but I don't want to promise anything.

We were going to go to the fair on Monday, they have a flower auction which not only can you find great mums for $2 a planter, the auctioneer makes a real show of it. Instead the Sunday paper had a $4 coupon to see Vatican Splendors. It wasn't really what I was expecting. It was much less. Much of the artwork was 16-17 century and later (much of it was from the 20th Century). There were some standout pieces, though, but I'm glad we had coupons.

The crowd was interesting. Very much of the "we go from listening station to listening station" and not really paying attention. At the beginning there were some paintings (two very interesting ones, "John the Baptist" panel from a tryptic and a "Mary" that had never been shown publicly before) and a reliquary in the middle. Most people were crowding the walls so I went to see the reliquary which had bone fragments from Simon named Peter and six other saints. When I say fragments, I mean real little chips of bone. There was also a fabric swatch from a bag used to carry reliquaries (which of course is also supposed to be infused with the full power of the saints it carried, just like the chips of bone). After a bit I commented to Bette, "Peter has been spread pretty thin." There was one room that had the things I expected to see, but they were all from the 20th century. There were some chasubles and other garments, a few crosses, and some of the ritual objects. These were very interesting. A number of them had dragons incorporated in the design. Hippogryphs, ducks, griffins, and a unique winged half-man half-serpent character on a water pitcher used to wash the hands of the priests during the ceremony. None of these objects were in the catalog, which is the reason we didn't buy it.

And in even more important news, I won Todd Wheelers reading contest. Woohoo! I didn't get much fiction reading done this summer, so I was very surprised at me winning. As Todd said, it's better to be lucky than good. But now my number is retired for Todd's contests. I've won too much.

So September is off to a good start. Thanks to Todd. I certainly hope this is a turning of the tide. This summer hasn't been all that good to me and will go down as the summer when all our appliances went bad (me: hot water tank in January, dishwasher, and furnace; Mom: roof, furnace and AC; Sister-in-law, dryer, it's a long list). I certainly hope this Fall is good to us all.

Good people

Good people are not like you and me.

Good people get passes in life. They have things said of them like, "Oh sure, that was bad, but they're good people so we know they really aren't like that." Good people endorse abstinence only sex education when it's such a failure. Instead of seeing it as a failure, they feel that those that have fallen have had individual moral failures. When it doesn't concern good people, they can be righteous in their condemnation.

Sara Palin is good people.

Good people do good things, so everything they do is good. There are no wrong actions or failures of morality, only good things. Sara Palin can state that she is a feminist (with qualifications) and get a pass from the social conservatives of her party, who would normally spit on the word feminist. When her un-wed daughter becomes pregnant, the social conservatives trip over themselves to say she's doing the right thing, because she has involved her parents, is keeping the baby and the boy has said he will marry her. There is no condemnation for sex out of wedlock, underaged pregnancy, failures of personal character, or hiding the pregnancy. The social conservatives that foam at the mouth decrying all of those things for you and I are falling over themselves to say how Palin's daughter is doing the right thing. Good people aren't criticized for such trivial things.

The word is duplicitous.

I call these social conservatives for their moral failures for not seeing this for what it is, so concerned they are with getting another Republican administration. These things that they would be calling for a reinstatement of the Scarlet Letter if it were anybody else (except another Good Person) gets a pass. You all should be ashamed of yourselves. You have lost your moral high ground, willing abandoned it.

A world made of good people.

This is the world the social conservatives want. Where there is one standard for the Good People, and another standard for the rest of us. It is a desire for an aristocracy and monarchy, their Anglophilish wet dream. For the saved, all is bright and wonderful. For the saved there is no sin, because they are saved. The other people, the unsaved, are a brutish lot and must be treated as misbehaving children.

Good people are not like you and me.