Once more into the breach

I am sitting here mentally getting ready to go to church in about 45 minutes. I have to admit I am not looking forward to it. I think there needs to be a class on going to church - not confirmation or whatever - done that, been there. But more on "This is what you should be thinking when you're sitting in the pew" kind of stuff. How to keep from feeling bored. Unengaged. Resentful. Counting the minutes. Because God deserves better than that!

Dan sez we should all just jump in and be the church and make it happen and be engaged, but Christ forgive me (Dan, too), I just don't know how to do that. It would mean basically taking some sort of medication to repress who I am, what I think, how I feel, so I could become a Stepford congregant, a Prozac parishioner. Because I know that 90% of what's in my head better stay there and not come out my mouth if I am going to not make waves, cause damage or (most likely) just be an ass. And even when I tried earlier this year to be more a part of the church it was a total failure.

My problems with the church are my problems - I don't blame the church for them. I haven't been spirtually abused. I have no "church insider" horror stories. Instead, I feel inside church like I feel outside of church - mostly as an outsider, an observer, someone who's never been "in the club", and never will be. Which is fine, for the most part - I am resigned to it. But it doesn't make the act of "going to church" very meaningful. I want it to be meaningful. I really, really do. But it just...isn't.

I'll quit whining now and start getting the kids organized. If you'll excuse me, I have to go polish a pew.

Home again

Got back from St. Charles yesterday at a little after 5:00, and then took Les out to eat to make up for her week (it wasn't a good one for her, and reminded both of us how hard it used to be when I was on the road all the time and she was home with the kids). It was a good class, but I am glad to be home, even if I am not that psyched about the usual weekend chores. Whatever.

I took a few more pictures of St. Charles after the ones I posted earlier this week.

Typical shop

Another shop


Newbill-McElhiney House (I think)


I tried and failed multiple days to get a good shot of these flowers at a gazebo


I.O.O.F. Building - now Quilogy H.Q., where the class was held


B.P.O.E. Building (now also Quilogy)


Ameristar Casino (ugh)

The casino shows the other side of St. Charles. It is just down Main Street from all the other stuff I've posted here. Very quickly once you get off Main Street or past the historic district, St. Charles is just another aging Midwestern suburb, this one with casinos. It makes for an interesting demographic. All week most of the people downtown were older, I get the feeling taking a break from the casino to walk, shop and eat along Main Street. I am told then on the weekends it becomes more of a college party area. Glad I caught it during the week.

Fun night out

If you are ever in the St. Charles/"West county" area of St. Louis, I highly recommend checking out the Ohms Brothers site and if they are playing near you, go see them. I heard them Sunday night at one pub here, found them on the Web, saw they were playing at another pub last night and went. This time I sat at the bar right by where they were playing, got to watch and talk to them. Cool guys, excellent music. Now I am hoping I can get Les to St. Charles some day so we can have a good time eating and seeing the sights and then go see Dennis and Guy, the Ohms Brothers. You'll be glad you did.

Nice place

I have been attending training at the Quilogy headquarters in historic downtown St. Charles, Missouri, and just being in the town itself has been great. It is a very old (well, by U.S. standards - founded in 1765) river town and was the first capital of Missouri. The weather has been unseasonably mild, in the high 70s and lower 80s, and the downtown area is made for ambling around on the brick sidewalks and eating al fresco at the various restaurants, wine gardens and pubs with patios. I have been taking advantage of both the climate and the dining, and have walking about four miles a day from the hotel to class along Main Street and back and then out again in the evening to go eat. In fact, I am getting ready to go to supper now - I am thinking about having German food at an outdoor wine garden that is very close to the hotel.

Here are a few shots I have taken since Sunday. Sorry for the quality, they were taken with my cell phone.

Happy anniversary

My friends Kim (a man's name, if you're Canadian) and Judy were married 30 years ago today. Since then they've raised two fine sons to adulthood, and more impressive in this day and age, stayed married even after that. Kim's one of my best friends on the whole planet, and so today, I wish them both a very happy anniversary! Well done!

Lovin' an elevator

This is me stuck in the elevator at the hotel. Really. It was hot and I was in there about fifteen minutes before the maintenance guy made it in to let me out. There was a mild moment of panic for the first minute or so until the desk clerk answered the alarm bell, and then I was just hot and irritated.

Now I am sitting outside on a beautiful evening at Rumples Pub in historic downtown St. Charles, a pleasant mile walk from the hotel, with live music filtering out from inside. A margarita is in hand, and a dozen sauteed sea scallops are on the way. So life is good.

Except for elevators.

(W: 234)

Jim - sent via mobile.

Ready, set, go!

Getting ready to head out soon for a week of SharePoint training in St. Charles, Missouri. It should be a good class. At least this time I don't have to fly anywhere - I am getting where I really hate the whole airport-security/crammed-in-a-metal-tube-for-hours thing. Better to just be able to drive (at the IRS rate of 58.5 cents a mile), tunes blaring, and only have to spend a little less than two hours to get there (in fact, the St. Louis airport is about five minutes further past St. Charles, so compared to past training travel, this will be cake).

Morgann starts college tomorrow - I don't know who's more excited, her, Les or me. She will be in honors composition and rhetoric (the same class Les and I met in back in 1982 - unfortunately the professor we had passed away a few years ago), honors history, chemistry and psych 101 (ah, it's good to have at least one blow-off class a semester :o). My first brush with college when I was 18 was a complete waste (or more to the point, I was completely wasted, all the time) and she didn't do well in college at 18 either. But I went back at 22 and kicked butt and that's my hope for her now, at the same age. I think she's ready to do something and get on the road to getting a degree and getting out of Dad's house.

Hopefully Les is coming to an end of two double shifts every weekend. She is trying to get her hours rearranged for a more sane schedule when she starts RN school in October, and what she's proposed to her facility would actually be a bit more hours, but spread over three days with only one double. It has been hard on her but she's done a great job at handling school and work and life this year, so I am proud of her.

Well, nothing much else to say today. Talk to you later.

Oops! Dropped the ball

I had a good day yesterday. Work was productive. The second organizational meeting of a Mid-Missouri .NET user's group I am organizing for the area went well, and our first "real" meeting is now scheduled in September. My daughter Morgann completed her registration at Lincoln University (Les and my alma mater, and where Les is going for RN school now). Les and I had a nice "date night" out at Domenicos, are favorite restaurant. We came back and watched A Mighty Wind, which we hadn't seen in a while. It was all good.

And through it all I forgot to blog.

Oops!

Well, actually, I remembered a couple of times during the day that I needed to think about a post and get one out there, because I knew with my dinner date it would be hard to get done in the evening, but I just didn't get around to it. So my Blog365 attempt faltered at day 235 (64%). Ah, well. It was basically just a writing exercise to me anyway and I will try and keep up for the rest of the year but now the pressure's a bit off. And that's OK.

Sorry if you went through withdrawal without your daily nugget of...whatever it is I do here. :o)

[W: 235.5]

What I am up against

Yesterday I announced my goal for next summer. Today, my friend Mike, whom I will be doing the trip with, commented on that post:

Hey dude get to work I have been hiking 1-2 times per week , and cycling 125- 200 miles per week Im at a svelt 163.Cant wait its gonna be great.

I gotta get going! And yet today what did I do? I went to lunch with co-workers. Sigh.

[W: 237.5]

A new goal

I'm overweight. We might as well get it out in the open - I am 6'1" tall and have weighed 235 lb. (+/- 5 lb.) for well over the past year. That calculates out to a BMI of 31, which makes me officially obese, but since I am tall I carry it fairly well and think of myself as "chunky". But that's just a rationalization.

When Les and I got back together in 2000 I weighed 175 lb. (BMI of 23.1, right in the middle of "normal"). I doubt I will ever see those days (or waist sizes) again, but I do want to lose some weight - I'd be happy just being back at 200 (BMI of 26.4 - officially overweight, but I'd be in fine shape). The change for the worse came when I moved back to Missouri and my opportunities for hiking, backpacking, snow shoeing and climbing plummeted. I still got in some trips for a while because I was working for a company based in Colorado and got to go out and do some things with Mike, but ultimately it all stopped and I haven't done anything in four years. Four very long and in some sense boring years, with weight adding on every year.

Then I started working where I do now in early 2005 and really added on the poundage because there's always (always) free food around. It's terrible. I can go all day without eating if I am not tempted, but send out an email of "Free food in the kitchen!" and I'm first in line. I have no willpower that way. Pathetic.

On top of all that I've stopped exercising because I had nothing to exercise for. I am not a big fan of exercise for exercise's sake - well, not at least things that involve gyms or sports or running or whatever. In fact, all of that is flat out boring to me - it sucks. I have the type of mind that does weird things like calculate "I am now 17/42 of the way through my run", which makes the distance (and time) go by way too slowly, like watching mile markers on the Interstate. I don't lose myself in the workout. The only exercise that's ever motivated me, because I didn't think of it as exercise but as pure joy, was hiking, backpacking, snow shoeing and climbing. And when I was into that, I would gladly do "normal" exercising during the week because I had something to be in shape for during the weekend or those great week-long treks.

I decided the other day what I needed was a goal. And it had to be a realistic goal, but it also had to be an exciting one, one that would motivate me to get off my fat duff and get back in shape. So I have emailed Mike and we are now aiming to spend the week around my birthday (July 15) backpacking and climbing in the Cloud Peak Wilderness Area in the Big Horn Mountains in Wyoming. I like the idea for a lot of reasons:

• Two of my best birthdays were spent doing great things in the mountains. I'd like to enter my last year of my 40s in shape and setting a precedent for my 50s.
• A little under a year is realistic for getting in the shape I'll need to be to go a week with 60 pounds on my back while spending most of that time above timberline.
• There are some good looking 13ers in the range that would be fun to try.
• We've never done anything in Wyoming, so it's time to start. And the area we're going to is big (not as big as the Wind River Range, but that can be next), wild, and my late friend John raved about it - and any opinion from a guy who spent a large portion of his life being a climbing bum in the Sierras, Cascades, Alaska, Colorado and Utah should be taken seriously.
• I will probably try to squeeze in a couple of long-weekend sprints to Colorado between now and then to get in some overnighters and check my progress.
  

So, here's my public "outing" of my goal. To be ready for 5-7 days in the back country of Wyoming, most of the time above 9,500', weighing 200 pounds (or less), by July 10, 2009, a mere 324 days from now. So not only do I need to start losing a pound every ten days, but getting into shape as well. I plan on using this forum from time to time to track my progress and keep me honest. Feel free to cheer, tease, rag, nag and otherwise motivate me on (please).

Nice day

You ever have a day where you're just "quietly productive"? Nothing extraordinary, just getting a lot done, feeling good at the end? That's been my day. I had a good day at work, helped my parent-in-laws with a computer problem (well, correctly diagnosed it anyway - crashed hard drive), and then came home and helped Morgann get her computer set up in the kitchen. Now I am quietly awaiting Les's meat loaf (which I like - a lot) to be done and then it will be yummy dinner and time for bed before the first day of school (only a half day, but they have to go in the morning - not fair!)

Les got officially accepted into her nursing program for the fall today, and Morgann goes in to see her academic advisor about returning to college tomorrow. We're a school-going family! Makes me want to learn something just to keep up. But wait! I'll be going to SharePoint class next week, so that counts for something. And I am keeping all my Spanish books out and about to guilt me back into that. But I also have another "project" looming I will write more about soon. It won't be "learning" but it will be good for me nonetheless.

I hope your day was good, too. I am a big believer in recognizing not just the great days, but the quietly good ones, too - the "nice days". They're a gift. They shouldn't be ignored. Have a nice day.

Back to school...almost

We go to an open house at school tonight so the kids can meet their new teachers, put their supplies into their cubbyholes or lockers and see some friends they haven't seen all summer. School starts for real on Wednesday. I have to say I have actually enjoyed the "time off" this summer, the first in a long time where we didn't have the children in day care so I could just get up and go in the morning and the only person I had to worry about getting out the door was me. That is now coming to an end and it will be back to motating (if not motivating) three cranky people up, dressed and out the door every morning starting at 6:40. At the same time I am happy to see them going back to school, and I think they are happy to be going back, if only because it's something different than being stuck together in the same house for the last few months.

In preparation Les took them swimming at her mom's this afternoon - one of the last weekday swims they'll get to do until next summer. Meanwhile, my first day back at work after vacation has sorta dragged along. Man, eight hours is a long time! :o)

What's your response?

Am I the only one who finds responsive prayer to be somewhat less than a satisfying manner to praise and petition our Lord? Even in our "contemporary" evening service we have a lot of it. Actually, we used to not but now it's crept back in - pushed there by the pastor or perhaps the elders, I think, to make the service more doctrinally "normal" (so why start a "break the rules" service if you're just going to let the rules back in anyway?). Anyway, I have always had problems engaging in responsive prayer. It's the part(s) of the service where my own form of worship ADD kicks in.

Pastor: Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Congregation: Lord, hear our prayer.
[repeat ad infinitum]

So I stand and go along to get along. But I am usually just doing it all by rote, mouthing the words, waiting for something with a bit more "meat". Am I missing something? I must be. I have no clue what I am actually supposed to be thinking during such things. Am I supposed to make the droning words my own? Even if I don't agree with them (and sometimes I don't). How? Am I supposed to give them a psychic "push" heavenward? Or am I supposed to go "Zen mind, empty mind"? Because that's the "response" most likely to be in my head while responsively "praying".

[Hmmm...I wonder what I'll make for dinner after the service? Chicken would be good. Man, was my boss an @$$ the other day. Oh, well, that's life. Les looks good today. How are we going to pay for taxes? I wish the kids would stop fidgeting...]
(startles to make the cue) "Lord, hear our prayer."

I am afraid I just don't get the whole "worship the Lord by a script" thing. We're supposed to be in a relationship with God, yes? Prayer is supposed to be conversation with our Father, correct? So, name me any other relationship in your life where you stand up and mouth the same words as a group to someone and it's supposed to represent a meaningful conversation. Other than singing "Happy Birthday", I can't think of any. If everyone else in your family stood up and said the same words to you in unison to ask for something, wouldn't you find that, well, rather creepy?

I know I am the outlier on this subject, but I just don't get it, and frankly, it's one of the "churchy" things that drives me crazy, 'cause I really, really, really just don't see the point, never have, and wonder if I just missed the class the day they taught how to be filled with bliss and interest and fervent worship using responsive prayer.

So...What's your response?

Carpet bagging

I was in Lowes today buying various plumbing items in prep for a revamp of Morgann's bathroom when I saw a roll of discontinued carpet that was perfect to replace the worn-out, original-with-the-house 1979 green shag carpeting monstrosity lurking on the floor in Jon's room. The remnant was a nice neutral color berber, which I think is ideal for kids' rooms (no pile or shag to grind dirt and small toy pieces into). But the best part of it? I got a 12' x 12' 3" roll for $36. That works out to just under 24.5 cents per square foot. The pad I buy to put underneath it will cost more than that!

So it looks like I get to learn how to lay carpet soon. Might as well use the boy's room to figure it out, since out of everyone in the house he will care the least if there are slight "issues" with my first effort (although Jon exclaimed a few "Yays!" at seeing the carpet roll, since I think the shag was even getting to him). If all goes well then I will tackle Morgann's room next, which also has original carpet, a worn out blue pile. But first! I get to replace her toilet and faucet and drain - joy!

The best advice I've read in years

We are big fans of Garrison Keillor and A Prairie Home Companion, as you well know. And since Les is on vacation this week, we actually get to share listening to it tomorrow night for the first time in six months or more - yay!

Les subscribes to the weekly email update from the show, and each week there's some question from a listener and Garrison's answer. Following is this week's entry and I am hard-pressed to think of better advice I've heard in years:

Dear Mr. Keillor,
Hi! I'm a senior in high school and I'm planning on following a career in the performing arts. It's always been a dream of mine to be a part of the show. What I would like to know is how could I possibly join Prairie Home Companion someday, if possible? If not, do you have any tips or hints on becoming a truly dynamic performer? Thanks so much.

Rebecca S.

Push yourself in the direction of your fears, Rebecca, and learn to master things that frighten you —shy persons should learn to get up and speak and sing, clumsy people should do gymnastics, juggling, riding a unicycle. (I didn't do it and I regret that—I'd be a better performer if, in addition to writing, I'd studied dance and picked up a musical instrument and learned how to stand on my head.) You are in your prime learning years and they're not to be wasted sitting in a classroom listening to a teacher blather about things you're not motivated to really learn. The listless passive student sitting in a classroom in order to placate his or her parents—a huge waste of time. Grab hold of your ambition and go with it. Get a job as a tour guide, a good place for a performer to start. You master a body of knowledge and you learn to present it face-to-face to a small group of people and you will know immediately if you're engaging them or not and if you aren't, you'll learn how to improve. I live in an old neighborhood of stately piles, many of which have interesting stories, and ever so often a gaggle of tourists goes by, led by a guide—this is a great performance opportunity that might be better for you than a bit role in a show. Or camp counseling—children are a tough audience. And start building your skills—develop your singing with old show songs, learn to tell jokes, take up juggling, master the tango and the samba, take to the flying trapeze, learn to play the tuba, and keep a daily journal of all your doings. Whatever you do, don't sit and wait for the phone to ring. And when you're ready to take over the radio show, let me know. I've got a few more years and then I'm out of here.

I think I'd take the fire

So, the ongoing re-organizing of the house is actually going pretty well. Les is down to about five to six more boxes to go through and then we're pretty much done for this round. It's given us an excuse to buy a new shredder, because the old three-pages-at-a-time one wasn't cutting it (literally) for going through seven accumulated years of bills, receipts and whatnot. There will be more to do as time goes on, but some of it I want to defer to another date, such as actually going through the Christmas stuff at Christmas time and anything that doesn't get put out and used gets Freecycled (and the surplus cards from the past seven Christmases actually all get used and we don't buy any this year). Or going through the stored box of kitchen stuff at the same time I go through the kitchen itself. It feels good when it's over but it's not the most intellectually challenging of activities, and if you're like Les or me either one you have to sort of arrive at the right "steely mindset", or else it becomes an exercise in melancholy, which can rapidly throw the entire thing off track. So far we've both been good about keeping the "steely mindset".

I was talking to my friend Jason on the phone yesterday and he said something I hadn't heard before, a saying that "three moves equals a fire". I think there's truth to that. I used to move every couple of years and so the opportunity to purge was always there and I often got rid of a lot. I'd also say that in my experience a divorce is more than equal to a fire - maybe two fires. Because (a) it always involves a move, and (b) it also involves a purge akin to airbrushing out former Politburo members from all the May Day parade photographs. And once you're in that steely mindset that divorce easily brings on it can be easy to over-purge, as I did in my divorce in 2000 and threw away all of my Grandmother's letters. What a dummy - I still get sorrowful over that. So yeah, like a fire.

But after seven years in one place if you don't have something catastrophic like a house fire or a divorce or a boomerang child returning and cramping all available space then it falls upon you to dung out the stables for no other reason than you're the adult and it has to be done once in a while or else you end up parking your vehicles in the driveway because your garage is full of crap or worse renting a storage unit, both of which I refuse to do. As I have said before, it is a doctrinal point in my personal religion that a garage is meant to be parked in, for God is good and wants us to have vehicles we don't have to scrape snow and ice off of in the winter or burn our butts in getting into them in the summer. And just like Robin Williams once quipped that "Cocaine is God's way of saying you have too damned much money", a storage unit is God's way of saying you have too damned much stuff!

I've had three major "fires" in my life. One was losing almost everything I grew up with by having it stored in the basement of a church and their giving it all away while I was in Air Force basic training. The other two were divorces. Hence, my entire life's mementos is down to two plastic storage tubs (three if you count the one with photos in it). And it's mostly OK. It's taught me (somewhat) that "stuff" isn't that important. On the other hand, because in all three cases I was to blame partially or wholly for losing things that meant something to me it also places all the onus on me for it all being gone. Contemplating that is an exercise in melancholy, indeed, so I usually don't - except at reorganizing times such as these.

As the title of the post says, sometimes I think I'd rather have had it lost in a fire - something unexplainable, with everyone just happy to have made it out alive. But whatever. That's life, it only plays forward. Ya know?

Great photo site

I am a big fan of Shorpy - a collection/blog of photos ranging from the Civil War up until the 1970s. The subject matters are all over the place, from family pics to old gas stations to documenting child laborers, migrant workers in the Depression, WWII factories, etc. Most of Shorpy's collection is in black and white, but Kodachrome was invented in 1935 and started giving us those nice, bright colors in Farm Security Administration photos around 1937 or so, and even more from the Office of War Information photos in the 1940s. But most of the ever-growing collection at Shorpy are pre-color, including beautifully detailed 8"x10" glass negatives.

Today, I was directed to the Charles W. Cushman collection (h.t. Andrew Sullivan via Tyler Cowen). It's a great set of photos from the late 1930s until 1969, most (all?) in color. Locations from around the world and most of the U.S.

Check it out, it's worth the ramble.

A violent purge

I am off this week and have been working pretty hard on a "spring cleaning" (hey, it's getting toward the end of winter in the southern hemisphere, so I can claim it's coming on spring somewhere :o) that we have really needed and haven't gotten around to for, oh, let's say five years and call it square. It's not that we live in filth (the kids clean the house on demand for allowance, including today, so that's easy). It's just that things get piled into plastic storage totes and shoved into shelves in the garage and forgotten about.

But with Morgann needing a space of her own and having slept for ten months on a futon wedged into what is obviously but not for much longer Les's old office, we've been spending a lot of time this week going through things and deciding, "Do we really need CDs for software that crows about its compatibily with Windows 95, 98 and Me?" "Do we really need maintenance records for vehicles we no longer own?" "Do we really need school work from some general education college course from the 1980s?" (that's directed at my lovely but somewhat pack-rat-ish spouse :o). "Do we really need stacks of pictures in frames laying on our fireplace ledge - isn't seven years long enough to decide to hang some pictures?" And one for me, "Do we really need SCSI cables for devices we no longer own in this era of USB?"

I actually find such purges liberating. For one, you get in touch with each and every thing you own, and for a brief magical period of some months following you actually know where it all is. For another, it frees up space (but of course that always is temporary, as we buy more $#!+ to replace it). It also allows you to define a psychic dividing line - "I am not that person any more". I used to move quite a bit and so each move was an opportunity to go through this process, but we've been in this house for over seven years now (a record for my adult life) and we've accumulated a lot of cruft. So the goal this week is to decruftify.

So often we define ourselves by what we have. I prefer the cleansing times for allowing me to define myself by what I choose to have not.

What have you thrown away (or Freecycled) today?

It's never too late

We've only lived in this house seven years, and Morgann's only been in it over ten months, and we're finally doing a real house re-org and getting her room to be her room (mostly - she has the master bedroom and one of the two closets remains Les's overflow space). The shared office is actually rather chaotic right now, but I am heartened by what we've already accomplished. I hope we stay on track all week...I think living somewhere for seven years means you're finally there long enough to invest in hanging pictures on the walls (really - Les and I both are such cyberheads I think we could live in anywhere as long as there's an Internet connection :o).

Pickled peppers Peter Piper picked

Here are the results from yesterday:

[Click to enlarge]

¡Viva los jalapeños!

[OK, I know I have posted two recipes in a row. What can I say, I wanted to capture this one while it's fresh in my head from just making it.]

Anyone reading here longer than a month knows I love chiles of all types. I also love pickles. And I love cooking. So, since my garden is churning out lots of jalapeños I decided to make jalapeños escabeche, a.k.a., pickled peppers (and carrots - I love the hot pickled carrots that come with pickled jalapeños). After perusing a few recipes, here's my own take on it.

Jim's pickled peppers

The following filled seven wide-mouth pint jars.

• 42 ripe jalapeños (I used half red and half green for a bright, festive look)
• 4 cups white vinegar
• 1 cup olive oil
• 1 cup water
• 4 tsp plain salt
• 25-30 baby carrots
• 14 cloves garlic
• 7 cloves
• 7 bay leaves
• 7 sprigs fresh oregano
• coriander seeds (whole)
• cumin seeds (whole)

Boil the jars and lids to sterilize them. Drain and let cool. Trim the stems on the jalapeños, then wash and dry them and use a toothpick or similar tool to poke four or more holes in each pepper. Put the vinegar, olive oil, water and salt in a large stainless steel or glass pot and bring to a boil. Set aside. In each jar place a bay leaf, sprig of oregano, 1/4 tsp coriander, 1/4 tsp cumin and one clove. Pack each jar with six jalapeños, two cloves of garlic and four to six baby carrots. Be artistic! Ladel in the pickling liquid until there is about 1/2" left below the rim of the jar. Put a flat and ring on each jar and seal. Place in water bath, bring to a boil and then boil for 10 minutes. Remove jars and cool on rack until each flat "dimples". Put away for a month or more to let the peppers and carrots pickle and for all the flavors to get acquainted. Eat with Mexican food (or whenever).

¡Viva la sangria!

Mmmm...Sangria. Tastes like...summer. Morgann and I are sipping while listening to the news from Lake Wobegon.

Jim's sangria

• 4 cups dry red wine
• 1/3+ cup triple sec
• 1/3+ cup brandy
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 small can pineapple juice (the kind that comes in the little six packs)
• 1/4-1/2 cup fresh lime juice (try key lime for a different tang)
• thin slices/chunks of fresh fruit from one or more of the following - orange, lime, lemon, peach, nectarine, strawberries, etc.
  

Mix well. Serve over ice. It gets better if it sits for a few hours in the fridge (overnight is even better) but you can serve it immediately. Make sure some fruit gets into the glass with the sangria.

Oh, my aching back

I threw my back out this morning bending over to pick up my shoes - how embarrassing. It had been a year or more since I'd done that so I guess the karma had built up or something. Now I am sitting here all hunched over, having just awakened from a Flexeril-fueled nap. This is a great way to start a vacation where we will be reorganizing the whole house, moving stuff around, toting storage bins and all that.

The first time my back went out was around 1990 or so helping a friend move one of the surplused PDP 11/23 computers that had been Kansas City's original 911 system (he was a real hacker pack rat, let's just say that). Before that I had never understood why my dad had trouble walking when his back went out. Now I know. There are times when a twinge will literally drop me to my knees, unable to stand. When that happens it, um, like sucks, dude.

Anyway, I guess it's genetics. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with my fitness level - I am out of shape now, but I've thrown out my back multiple times when I was in great shape. In fact, while moving that damned mini-computer I was probably in the best condition of my life, running, lifting weights and doing other exercise regimes six days a week. Another time was at the end (thankfully) of a five day wilderness backpacking trip with Mike. No real rhyme nor reason.

Anyway, whatever. Do you have a bad back? Isn't it fun?

The dead were funnier than you and me, part 2

The ongoing series, tonight brought to you by getting back late from dinner out with Les's parents. Some more Ambrose Bierce, this time concerning current events.

Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
President, n. The leading figure in a small group of men of whom - and of whom only - it is positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want any of them for President.
Conservative, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.

Domestic bliss, I've dreamed of this

Les is on break from school and is cooking during that time - tonight we're having homemade beef pot pie. The English/Welsh ancestry in me says, "Yum!" On top of that we're having sweet corn from Patrick's family's farm (the second time this week and there's still more in the fridge and we've even given some away!). I traded some of my Roma tomatoes for it because his parents' tomatoes aren't doing that good, mine are doing slightly better, and I still got the way better end of that deal! Fresh tomatoes are heaven on earth - fresh sweet corn is God's own banquet table. Meanwhile, my (non-habanero) hot chilies are doing great, and I started my third ristra of red Tabasco chilies yesterday.

I finally hayed mowed tonight because it was "only" in the high 80s after a "cold front" moved through and at 7:13 p.m. tonight it is "only" 88 degrees. My Brit friends would think that lovely, but only because they holiday in such places and don't do real work while they're there. I just think it's f-----g hot, but then I grew up in mostly temperate Boulder, and once this Angle's/Saxon's/Celt's ancestor's walked away from their homeland, we've been yearning to go back. Isn't that funny? Homo sapiens' motto:

"Wanting to be where/what/who we're not."

Newspaper vies to be the worst

I've written before about our "daily disappointment" (Dad's term for the local rag). Here's another example of their "specialness" from a few days ago:


Yes, folks - the paper of record for the capital city of this fair state.

Where did I pack my leisure suit?

Ah, the 1970s. Polyester. Disco. Cocaine. The only decade in the history of humankind in which the colors orange and green were thought to go together and be a fine choice for interior decorating. All mercifully gone. Sure, it's fun to look back through the lens of time and nostalgia and watch an MTM repeat, or relive it via Dazed and Confused, but really, it's not a decade I would want to repeat. For one, because I was a troubled adolescent then (my biggest argument against reincarnation is having to live through my teen years again).

But we are all getting to relive part of it now. As I was talking to a friend of mine today and we were complaining about the doubling of the price of food and gas in the past year or so, I said, "Has it hit you yet that this is what our parents had to go through in the 1970s?" Except they weren't quite as well off. I mean, right now our biggest worries are whether we can possibly keep Les in college and the kids in (church-subsidized) parochial school at the same time this year (Les wins if there has to be a choice). Especially if we add Morgann going back to college into the mix. Times are tight, so we've had to switch to house brands on most groceries (gasp!), but God willing there's no question that we'll have a roof over our head and food to eat and the lights on this coming year. We'll have health care and medications. Our hard choices will be choices.

I don't know how my parents made it through the 1970s, actually. They both worked hard, for one (there was a period of years where my dad worked 10-12 hour days six or seven days a week). They only had one obnoxious high school dropout hippie kid to feed, for two. But it must've been a real stretch for them nonetheless. And yet I have no memories of feeling particularly "poor". We lived in a trailer in a fairly affluent town, sure, but there was always food, and Christmas, and long Vacation-style car trips to see not just family, but lots of the western national parks (the only vacation Les and I will pull off this year will be a "staycation" at home).

And I really don't know how the poor are making it now (short answer, "They're not"). I can't imagine having to choose between food and utilities and gas to work and medicine, all of which are ever more expensive. And I am a pessimist - I think just like the mid-to-late 1970s, what we're seeing now is just the start. Obama better be careful, or he may be the next Jimmy Carter, inheriting a situation not of his making and getting blamed for it for the next three decades.

Anyway, is your life changing now because of prices? How? Do you think it's going to be permanent? Are you worried?

OK, now it's HOT

It hit 100 degrees today (Fahrenheit for those of you elsewhere - no, standing water wasn't boiling outside :o). In the shade. As measured by the thermometer we have in the shade. It was so hot and humid that when I pulled the truck out of the un-air-conditioned but still cool garage to run for vittles to Hy-Vee (the grocery store, for those of you not in the middle of nowhere Midwest) the outsides of the windows all condensed with moisture, just like an iced tea glass. As did my glasses when I walked from the air conditioned truck into the store.

I worry about the people that come to the Sam Center on days like today. Lots of them only have fans, and those that have A/C probably can't afford the utility bills they're going to get socked with. And speaking of the Center, the food pantry was at the lowest levels I've seen it in the two years I've been there. Times get tight, and people stop giving - right when they need to be giving. I say that and I haven't taken any food in later, although I did buy school supplies for the Sam Center back-to-school drive my work is having. But I will have to fix the food part. It's tight for us, too, but it's not that tight.

So, what did this dummy do for dinner on such a hot day? He grilled, of course. But just hamburgers, so I was only out for four flips and they were done. Tasted great, especially garnished with a fresh garden tomato.

Another Saturday night

Well, I had to work today to install a new release of software that had to go in this weekend, but it all went pretty well. I was able to work from home and was done before 5:00 and got to listen to Prairie Home Companion, as usual. I have friends affected by the same release in other Farm Credit associations that are still working on it, at 7:30 p.m. Bummer. Meanwhile, lamb curry is bubbling in the oven upstairs with an ETA of 8:00. And Morgann's been happy because her computer is home and she's getting to play a lot of games she's missed (right now, counting my work laptop, we have nine computers in the house - does that make us odd? :o).

So, life was good to me today, even with the work. It's all good.

Go, team, go!

My take that Christians should never watch violence as entertainment didn't raise any hackles - perhaps because my readership is down since I stopped posting about theology all the time and started posting about real life instead. Anyway, I am going to follow it up with an even broader statement and see if we can't get any fish to bite this time.

The following was triggered by this post of Jeff's, which was in turn inspired by Tracy's post on the "us vs. them" mentality among and between Christians. I have written before on that particular topic as well, but now am going to take a broader viewpoint beyond all three of those posts. Namely:

"Is there ever a time when membership in a group that fosters pride or exclusiveness (including Christianity itself) is a good thing for a Christian?"

My answer: "No. Never."

Humans are tribal creatures. We love to congregate and sort ourselves out into all sorts of little cliques and teams:

• Family - I am not saying that family is bad, since it is the core of our society, how we learn of love, etc. But when we start thinking our family is better than others, that's a problem.
  
• Gender - yes, the sexes are different, and that is something to celebrate. But too often it is used to divide us, each throwing taunts and insults at the other "side".
  
• Ethnicity/Culture - the remnants of real tribalism are alive and well today in ethnic pride (and hatred) and is responsible for much of the world's ills.
  
• Country - I believe patriotism, or more accurately chauvinism, is the heir to the tribalism of ethnicity and culture and has inherited all of the problems caused by those and then multiplied it because of the scale of the groups involved. War. Genocide. Forced displacements.
  
• State/Province/City - know any good Arkansas jokes (or Newfie jokes if you're a Canadian)? Sure you do. We all do. They're "harmless", right? That is until we remember that all humor is based on someone's pain, and we use such jokes to put ourselves above others by feeling a pride of place that is for the most part solely an accident of our birth or employment.
  
• Religion/Denomination - since this is the ground covered so well by Jeff, et al., as well as most of history, I won't say any more here.
  
• Church/Synagogue/Temple/Mosque - a continuation of the last point, but this time taken right down to the local level. How can anyone ever think their church is best? Best at what? They are all just gatherings of God's children in worship - is that supposed to be a competition? Unfortunately, that's exactly what we've turned it into.
  
• School - I am not talking about getting into Harvard, here (although that's part of the same phenomenon). I am talking about how public schools foster a sense of team and pride that is solely based on location - you go to your school because you live in its area, yet somehow that make you #1!!! This is usually tied into the following point.
  
• Sports teams - ever had your day ruined because your team lost? Slammed your fist in anger over a botched play? Ever called any of the players, coaches or fans on your team or the other bums? Felt ill will toward them? Ever shouted at your TV over a game? 'nuff said.
  
• Political parties - I don't even have the stomach to dive into this cesspool, but let's just say I am not a big fan of partisanship.
  
• ad infinitum - companies, unions, professional organizations, fraternities/sororities, even charities, and on and on an on.
  

In each of these we see two things arise. First, competition against other groups, and second, pride for our group. Both of those things are un-Christian in the extreme. Yes, life is competitive. Parts of it apparently have to be. But that doesn't mean we have to foster that competitiveness by adding even more of it to the mix. It's not like anyone misses their recommended daily allowance of competitiveness in daily life and needs to make it up with artificial supplements. And yet we all do exactly that. Why?

That "Why?" is easily answered. Pride. We all want to boost our self-image by being part of something bigger and better than ourselves. We want to be identified with "the winning team". We want to be seen as successful. We want to feel camaraderie toward others like us. And what's wrong with any of that?

Nothing, other than it's completely anti-Biblical. It takes the focus off the one place our pride should be, which is in Jesus. It sets up false gods for us to worship. It causes us to separate ourselves apart when our Lord commanded us to love each other and all people as He does.

Sure, grouping together is a way to solve larger problems. Most things in human experience are accomplished as groups. That is the positive aspect. The dark side is when we stop seeing groups as the tool to get something done and start making the group the goal, when the group takes on more importance than it should - when it causes us to exclude and mock other people. Often we hide our feelings of pride and superiority behind humor. They're just jokes, right? But how often does good-natured ribbing degenerate into hurt feelings? It's happened to me, both as the perpetrator and the target. I bet it's happened to you, too. Did you feel good afterward?

And yes, we are commanded into fellowship with each other, and that is also a good thing. Groups can foster love and togetherness. But if we start thinking our group of fellows shipping together are better than another, that's the problem. It happens within the church and we can see that and think "That shouldn't be". But for some reason when it happens outside of the church no one seems concerned. "That's just life" or "That's just business" or "That's just sports" being used to describe why we, as Christians, are "off the hook" for our prideful behavior then.

Remember, whenever we "team up" that always implies we are splitting apart from others. We need to be careful in every situation in which we identify with a group that we don't then cause that to throw up barriers against loving others. Inside church and out.