I haven't written a new blog in what seems like a very long time, and before reading this one you should know it's going to be fluff. No deep realizations or great information/discoveries/insights, although as I'm saying this I am realizing that prior posts may not have had any of those either and I've just revealed how incredibly egotistical I am. Anyway, the warning should allow you to act accordingly. To read or not to read, that is the question. Or for the geeks in all of us "Run Away, Run away!".
Begin.
The other day I was watching TV. I know Shocker! Animal Planet has this show called Dogs101. It goes over different breeds of dogs and ranks them in key areas to help potential pet owners make an informed decision. Each breed they are covering for the episode is graded by things like "Weather Tolerance", "Good Family Dog", "Health", "Grooming Requirements" and "Exercise Needs".
As I was watching it I found myself wanting to get a dog. I've never had a dog of my own. In fact growing up we only had a few pets ever and they were mostly cats that died and usually it was euthanasia (word of the day, ten points). There was a bunny that I won't go into, and David had an albino rat that escaped, became wild again and bit him. There were two dogs "Buster and Snaps" but they were Ben's dogs and not the rest of the families. To put it more succinctly, I personally, as an adult have never had a dog.
Judging by my pet skills to date, that's probably a good thing. We as a family have had some fish, and I had one in my office. Notice the 'had'. Hyrum had a $90 Russian Tortoise, which the boys played with in the back yard and never brought in again. Who knows where he is now.
But I've gotten off track. Regardless of how good an owner I would be, the show got me thinking about wanting a dog, and what kind I would like. Mostly I know what kind I would want. I want a Charlie dog.
My sister and her husband have the best dog in the world in my mind. His name is Charlie after "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" due to his sad eyes and the song "Cheer up Charlie" from the original, not Johnny Depp creepy version. Charlie is a little dog. I'm not sure what he is, but if I had to guess he's a mix between a chihuahua, Daschund, beagle and a ..... let's say Great Dane. No ... let's say Bull Mastiff, just because it's a funnier thought. He's kind of a longer dog, with short ears, short hair, and an aerodynamic head that makes him look really fast. Oh, and he sprints like he's on crack if you get him whooped up, and jumps twice or 3 times his own height when he wants to be held, and is a great lapdog. He'll climb up and let you pet him for hours.
Barring a Charlie, I would settle for these traits.
Good with children and babies.
Barks at strangers but wouldn't bite.
Good with other dogs, wouldn't bark.
Has own fax machine.
Smells nice.
Has short hair.
Is on the medium-small side (like a boxer or small bulldog)
Long nose because all dogs should have long noses. A dog with a squat face is rediculous.
Wants to be walked a lot. (more for my sake than his).
If any of you know what kind of dog fits all those criteria, let me know and I will take him.
This post is very possibly in bad taste. Beware you may be offended. But these are the three most influential non-scriptural books in history. Each promoted a particular political ideology.
Communism
Let the hate mail begin.
So this morning I was taking a shower and it's not really anything out of the ordinary. I adjusted the water so that it was a good temperature. I got in and soaked my hair and face, and started singing "Five Dollar .... Five Dollar ... Five Dollar foot-long". Stupid jingle. I dare you to get that song out of your head today.
After the soaking of the head I pushed all my hair out of my face. I reached for the shampoo bottle, put some in my hands and put the bottle back then it happened. I caught the fine print on the bottle and it said "This product was not tested on animals". Ok so that's really not that out of the ordinary, but it did get me thinking about that statement.
The idea is supposed to be that the consumer can feel good about purchasing and using this product because it hasn't caused a poor little monkey/mouse/cat any pain. Crap, now I want a Monkey-mouse-cat and doubt I'll be able to think of anything else to write. Pooh. Pushing through to my point.
First of all, I'm not that compassionate when it comes to animals I guess. Sure I get sickened by the Michael Vick's of this world, but even that isn't because of the pain the animal is in. Rather it's the pain that there exists the kind of violent natures in some people, that this would be considered entertaining. But again that's not the point of this story.
The point I'm trying to make is about the claim. I don't see how this shampoo or any other product that would make a statement like this, can make that claim. I will concede that the stuff that was put into this bottle was never tested on an animal. Claiming this batch of shampoo, or even this exact formula of shampoo was never being tested on animals is plausible, but here's the rub. The knowledge that these chemicals, combined in this would do no harm to your consumers was built on the work of multiple chemists and researchers, some of whom at one time or another did tests on animals. The point is this.
No knowledge is achieved independently. There is an inter connectivity between social beings and to expand the concept, between the entire universe. No man is an island. United we stand, divided we fall. We must live together, or perish alone. You can take the boy out of Clairmont, but you can't take Clairmont out of the boy. Ok that last one was a little week but watch this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0sRtwgn36w and you'll understand.
Now to internalize. Think of how much work it took for a jetliner to get built. One person couldn't have done it. Terry can attest to the amount of work that it takes, and the amount of people that it involves. Now add to the people that worked on it directly, the people who's innovation, learning, and sweat contributed to the effort before that plane was conceived. Just like people, knowledge has a genealogy. Before the 747 was the Jet Engine, based on the propeller, based on wing structure worked on by the Wrights who got their ideas from a glider club they were in, which club probably got ideas from DeVinci who probably got his idea from some unknown ... who in turn got the idea from watching birds which were created by .... well God.
It's really awesome. The epiphanies you can have in the shower.
I came to a realization recently that I haven't made any new friends in a very long time.
Somewhere between the time that I got married and now, I just stopped making friends. This isn't an epiphany in the strictest sense because I've thought of this topic before now. In fact I remember about 5 years ago saying to my Aunt that I didn't want to make any new friends because it's just too much work. How sad is that? The intentional denial of human contact and expansion of horizons due to laziness or fatigue shall no longer be the definition of anti-social tendencies. It shall be the definition of my social life.
Recently I've been connecting with old friends instead. Facebook and the Interwebs are amazing things. Facebook has me reminiscing with all sorts of old High School buddies. The rekindled friendship that has prompted this though is that which I had with an "Army Buddy". Recognize the minimize quotes here. We were both in the Army when we met but it's not like we were in the trenches together. In fact if it hadn't been for our church connection, I doubt we would have even met. In any case, we were pretty good friends. Without lingering too long to validate this statement, I would say that he is the newest friend that I made who I consider a friend, and a good friend at that.
I mean sure, there have been co-workers that I'm very fond of and would even consider close confidants, but I don't 'hang-out' with any of them. During non-work hours I am nearly always with my family, and my definition of a friend includes the criteria that he/she must be non-related either by blood or marriage, and be someone with whom you associate by choice rather than obligation.
Before I get an onslaught of emails and comments decrying my lack of gratitude for my family, both close and extended, I should mention that one of the reasons I haven't felt a need to have friends is that I am so edified from the familial relationships that I have. Of all my siblings and in-laws (and there are many) there are none that I would shun. *aside "Shun.... shun the unbeliever". I mean to say, I would chose to spend time with any or all of them.
Alice, Beth, Brian, Aaron, Jennie, Ben, Joie, Suzie, Rusty, Wayne, Kelli, David, Juniper, Elise, Sarita, Daniel, Katelyn, Nellie, Cliff (yes even Cliff), Evan (family nod), Kristin, Jon, Sharon, Fred, Mom + Dad, Dad + Mom, Grandmama, and too many cousins to name individually (I'm sorry), are all some of my favorite people in this world.
We got a call from Hyrum's teacher yesterday. I feel really badly for him because it seems he is too much his father's son.
While he's in class he does absolutely nothing. The teacher called us to have a talk with her to discuss what can be done. It's unfortunate that we have to make up for her short-comings, but I am glad that she was willing to ask us for help instead of just complaining that she couldn't do her job of teaching our child.
Last night I had a talk with Hyrum about doing his work in class and tried to listen to him as best as I could to see what it is that's keeping him from doing it. He started out talking about the heat, and feeling distracted and eventually opened up and told me how one of the girls in the class called him a "Know-Nothing". I tried to explain to him that I would bet that he's the smartest kid in the class. To which he responded, "I'm just a blob of gunk". Or something to that effect.
I told him that if he wants people to think that he's smart he should finish his work first, before anyone else. In the minds of 3rd graders, the quality of the work isn't really evaluated. The speed at which you complete work however is easily observed and can be a much easier measuring stick for the 8 year old mind.
This morning when I dropped him off at school, I stayed to talk to his teacher and sat in the room with them for a while. The first thing that made my heart sorrow for his sake was his seat. All of the kids sit at tables that are pushed together so they are facing each other during the day, except Hyrum. He sits at a desk separated from the rest of the class, right next to the teacher's desk. He's ostracized in the minds of these kids. Not good enough. It's no wonder they think he's dumb and he thinks of himself as worthless. That's me putting a word to his phrase "I'm just a blob of gunk" but I think it's accurate.
With me there, he stayed on task fairly well. I had to remind him once or twice that he should be writing when he was looking at the board, staring into space, or figuring out what all pictures were. My visit only lasted 30 min. or so and I can see how for the teacher it would get overwhelming to have to remind him to work every 10-15min when there are 20 other students to work with.
When he was finished with his first assignment and turned it in to his teacher, she turned to me to say "He never finishes this quickly. And I know that he's capable of it. He'll spend 40min. not doing an assignment, but if I keep him in from recess, he'll get it done in 5." I also know that he's capable. I think I might just have to make it part of my morning routine. Get up, shower, take the boys to school and sit with Hyrum for the first part of his day.
We'll see if it helps for the rest of the day.
With the absence of anything else to blog about I am going to blog about a movie (*Booooo). Quiet down, believe me I know how lame that is. The lamest part is the the movie that I'm going to be blogging about wasn't that great. It literally gets 2.5 stars out of five in my book. Meg and I subscribed to Blockbuster.com's movie rental service because, well it seems we pay about $20 in movie rental's every other month or so becasue of late fees and such and it will end up being cheaper this way. Go fig.
Now for the big reveal. Can you feel the anticipation? We most recently watched "21". This 'heist movie' and I use the term loosely, follows the formula pretty well with the appropriate twists that catch you almost off-gaurd. But what it lacks in suprises, it makes up for in ... um, getting a good actor to play a supporting role?
The K-Pax dude who's name escapes me and I'm about to imdb him was really good. Spacey!! That's it. Kevin Spacey. A quick aside to note how big a loser I am. I just imdb'd K-Pax to find out who it was that was playing the role in "21". Why didn't I just search for "21" and find him? I don't know.
Anyway, Mr. Spacey plays the former card counter turned MIT professor and leader of the new generation of young card counters. And he plays it well.
The other supporting actor "Lawrence Fishburne" (I didn't have to look that one up so suck it imdb) did a really good job too.
The rest of the cast however, did their jobs fine I guess, but overall the story was a little flat. This is one of those cases where you can tell the book by it's cover, or in this case DVD. By the by, I would bet the book is probably way better. If I ever read books, you could take solace in my critique of it.
A quick word now on Blockbuster.com. They've managed to make it even harder to find a decent movie than it is in the store. I don't know how these big chains operate but I suspect that they have contracts with only certain movie studios to exclusively stock that studios new releases. The selection is HORRIBLE. The only other movie we've ordered was "Bruce and Loyd ... something something" which is basically a promotional straight to DVD movie made up of footage that didn't get used in "Get Smart" thrown together and turned into a story that follows the timeline of the actual "Get Smart" movie just told from the point of view of the gadget makers Bruce and Lloyd. Oddly enough, even though it was pretty obviously an afterthought, there were enough funny parts and comical performances from Bruce (played by the guy that plays Hiro Nakamura on Heroes) and Lloyd (who I'm sure I've seen in a commercial or something but I'm not going to IMDB him since you can do it yourself) ...... what was I saying? Oh yeah, their performances are comical enough to keep you watching through the painful cheez.
Only geeks like myself are probably aware that Google has entered 'The Browser Wars'. It's really not much of a war anymore. I'm under the impression that if you're a Mac user you stick with Safari. Windows users stay with IE with Firefox getting a little bit of the action, but you hardly ever hear about Netscape, Opera, Konqueror or Lynx anymore.
Since I'm a huge nerd and on the outer edges of the 'tech' field I was excited to give it a try. It pretty much sucks. I'll say that again. Google Chrome pretty much sucks. You would think that it would work better with the google services at least, but it doesn't even do that.
Being a regular user of Gmail, Google Maps, Google Finance, Picasa, and obviously Blogger, I expected to see some better performance or neat features that would be available only to Google Chrome users. But alas, Google Chrome actually does either the same or worse than Firefox for all those services.
In fact the last post that I wrote (Monterey Trip) was originally done in Chrome, but I couldn't publish it. Luckily it didn't crap out completely like it has at other times so I was able to copy it open Firefox and get the post ... posted.
My only hope is that since it's still in Beta, they'll get all the kinks worked out in a timely fashion so that I'll be able to see what all the fuss is about.
