The Listening Project

I have a lot of music.  At the time of this blog my home theater computer (where I keep all my music digitally) says I have 4 weeks, 6 days, 2 hours, 22 minutes, and 52 seconds worth of music.  That total is about to change as the wife and I made a visit yesterday to Half Priced Books where I hit the clearance CD section and bought 20 more CDs  This should push me very close to 5 weeks of music (if I listened to it 24x7).

I admit that I have a problem.  I will buy almost any CD for $1 (or $0.50 if it is at my favorite pawn shop).  At a dime (or a nickel) a song, they don’t all have to be winners.  This used to cause closet space issues until I began keeping only the CD sleeve and chucking the CD case in the trash.  Even then, if you have enough CDs it is still a problem.

Other than CDs that I have converted to mp3, my collection also contains music from other sources.  I have some LPs that I have converted myself using my USB LP that I bought on clearance at Bed, Bath and Beyond a while back.  I have also resorted to finding copies of these LPs (and some cassettes) online via torrent (or other) sites.  Some of my more recent music was purchased from the Amazon mp3 store (they have $5 album sales sometimes) and a few albums are left over from when I subscribed to the eMusic service around 10 years ago.  I deleted a lot of that music a while back (including about 20 hours of John Coltrane music) as I was running out of space (and really, how much John Coltrane do I really need?).  I also have a few albums that I technically do not own but are hopelessly out of print and cannot be purchased anywhere.  As I organized my music collection, I began marking the folders containing the albums by prefacing them with LP, Cassette, eMusic or OOP so I could keep track of where the music came from originally.

This summer I started to work from home more.  With the kids home full time, the wife made her case (for her sanity and the overall well being of the house) that I should be home more.  I spent a little money on a better phone (my old one interfered with our wireless router), headset (the old one died a while back and I was using one that used to work with a cell phone that I no longer have), desk (a nice, 50% off sale at Staples at just the right time) and then moved everything into a corner in our bedroom (our house is small so there really was no other place with any privacy if I needed to be on a conference call).  Our ISP is only about 98% reliable so I reluctantly signed up for a MiFi device to get me 5GB worth of data per month from the 3G network thus allowing me a back up should the normal internet go down.  This last purchase / commitment was to ease the fears of my manager that I would be available during normal business hours.  I like working from home as it allows me the chance to listen to music.  This brings me to the title of this blog.

I have a 250 GB external hard drive and I copied my entire mp3 collection over to it and hooked it up to my work PC.  The music takes up about 1/3 of the hard drive space and leaves plenty of room for backing my work files up (the original intent of purchasing it years ago).  At first I simply listened to whatever music struck my fancy for that day but then I had an idea.  Why not listen to everything?  I thought about this a bit and thought that it would make sense to limit my listening only to those CDs that I have purchased.  This meant hunting down all the directories that were flagged as LP, Cassette, eMusic or OOP and removing them from my hard library.  I then removed any CD that was a single or extended single so I was only listening to complete albums.  Once I did all that cleaning I was left with about 800 albums.

Next I had to decide in what order to listen to them.  I could listen to them alphabetically by artist but then I remembered that I have 6 or 8 Reba McEntire CDs (don’t judge me!).  There are a few other artists that I own many CDs by and I think I would abandon this project if I listened in this order.  I think thought about creating a playlist of all the songs then hitting “randomize” and then “play”.  In the end I decided to listen to them in alphabetical order by album title.  If I listen to 3 or 4 albums a day (which is not likely) then I can be done in about a year (plus a few more weeks added in for any CD I might purchase during that time).

Now that I had my collection pared down and my plan in place I created a spreadsheet (of course!) and started listening…

#	Artist	Album	Date	Again?
1	The Benjamin Gate	["untitled"]	July 20, 2011	Yes
2	Phil Collins	...But Seriously	July 21, 2011	Yes
3	Charlie Peacock	...in the light The Very Best of Charlie Peacock	July 22, 2011	Yes
4	Jacob's Trouble	...let the truth run wild	July 22, 2011	Yes
5	Baha Men	2 Zero 0-0	July 22, 2011	Yes
6	Idle Cure	2nd Avenue	July 25, 2011	Yes
7	Arrested Development	3 Years, 5 Months And 2 Days In The Life Of	July 25, 2011	Yes
8	4 Him	4 Him	July 25, 2011	No
9	Snow	12 Inches Of Snow	July 25, 2011	Yes
10	12 Stones	12 Stones	July 26, 2011	Yes
11	Caedmon's Call	40 Acres	July 26, 2011	Yes
12	Tree 63	63 Sessions	July 26, 2011	Yes
13	Tree 63	63	July 27, 2011	Yes
14	Miss Angie	100 Million Eyeballs	July 27, 2011	Yes
15	Blindside	About A Burning Fire	July 27, 2011	Yes
16	Aaron Pelsue Band	Aaron Pelsue Band Live	July 28, 2011	Yes
17	U2	Achtung Baby	July 28, 2011	Yes
18	Adiemus	Songs Of Sanctuary	July 28, 2011	Yes
19	Savage Garden	Affirmation	July 28, 2011	Yes
20	Al Denson	Al Denson	July 28, 2011	No
21	Skillet	Alien Youth	July 29, 2011	Yes
22	Steven Curtis Chapman	All About Love	July 29, 2011	Yes
23	Stellar Kart	All Gas. No Brake	July 29, 2011	Yes
24	Bloodgood	All Stand Together	July 29, 2011	Yes

I added a column to record if I would consider listening to the CD ever again.  So far only 2 have earned a No in that column.  I found it odd that I own 3 CDs whose titles begin with period of ellipsis.  Different programs sort non alphabetical characters differently and for whatever reason Windows Media Player has the bracket symbol “[“ before periods and both before numbers.  Also, in a strict alphabetical sense, 12 should come before 2 or 2nd and 100 Million Eyeballs should have been #5 on the list but I let that slide.  If I am to be in this for the long haul I cannot be nitpicking on day 3.  The above list is really 1 1/2 week’s worth of listening but I had a slow start last week and did not want to blog about it should I have given up early.

Here are my thoughts on a few of these CDs that I have listened to over the past 2 weeks…

• Charlie Peacock “…In The Light The Very Best Of”: Charlie has got to be my favorite artist.  I have followed him since his first LP (Lie Down In The Grass, which I should get to sometime late this winter since I also own the CD).  I own a VHS of him in concert (which I ripped to avi and then stripped the audio and converted to mp3 – which disqualifies it from my listening project).  He co-wrote Every Heartbeat (a hit by Amy Grant a while back) and has produced tons of over albums that I own as well.  This best of CD was sent to me (for free) by Charlie himself when my wife tried to order 2 of his CDs directly from him and he missed her letter for some reason.  He sent the CDs she ordered and 2 more (this one and one that I already owned).
• Baha Men “2 Zero 0-0”: Please don’t think less of me for owning this CD.
• Arrested Development “3 Years, 5 Months And 2 Days In The Life Of”: I can listen to this one over and over, great CD.
• 4 Him “Self Titled”: I have a feeling that all my 4 Him CDs will be listed as a No in the far right column.  I got all of them at the Goodwill store in Frankfort, IN for $1 each.  I had only heard of them but not really heard them.  I figured that anyone with this many CDs must be good, right?  Not a big 4 Him fan.
• Snow “12 Inches of Snow”: Even with the lyrics in front of me, there is no way to follow them on “Informer”.
• Blindside “About a Burning Fire”: I love Blindside and have all their CDs as well.  Their early stuff is a little to hard for me but a very passionate band.  I saw them in concert in Indianapolis a while back with a friend.  I listened to this one out of order as the next CD was over 75 minutes and this one was only 45 and I was nearing the end of the work day.  I am not going to stick to the list strictly.
• Al Denson “Self Titled”: Chuck this in the pile with 4 HIM.  Another Goodwill find.  They can’t all be winners folks.
• Steven Curtis Chapman “All About Love”: A good find at the Frankfort Goodwill was about 10 SCC CDs.  On this CD (which I confess is the first time I have listened to it straight through) he covers “I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)” originally by The Proclaimers featured in the movie Benny & Joon.  I did sing “Moment Made For Worshipping” during a Sunday service once.  Well worth the $1 I paid for this CD.

Well, there are my thoughts of Week 1 (well Blog 1 anyway) of what I am calling The Listening Project.  More to come for sure.

Jon

Legal Precedent

I tell my kids “No” a lot.  It is not that I am a cruel tyrant of a father, it is just they have a way of remembering the “Yes” answers and will refer back to them in the future.  I have to be extremely careful not to give in to their pleadings in the heat of the moment as these decisions inevitably come back to haunt me.  I swear that my daughter has the mind of a lawyer.  She will ask me if she can stay up past her allotted bedtime one night in her room and I will tell her, “No”.  Undeterred, she will (as if she had anticipated and prepared for my answer) state her case…

Dear Father, may I refer you to Case 1467: Father Vs Son Dec 2009 (aka Can I Stay Up To Read In My Room?) where you, Father, agreed to let Your Son stay up late to read in his room.  I believe if you review the case you will see that the situation is similar enough (relative age of offspring, subject matter of book to be read, etc) that I deserve the same treatment and outcome.  To not do so would result in A) your good name as a good and fair father being tarnished B) anarchy and chaos in our household as we know it due to inconsistent paternal rulings or C) both.  I await your reconsideration in this matter.

You can ask my wife, this is only a SLIGHT exaggeration.

I tell my wife “No” a lot as well.  Now this might seem to go against my mantra, “Happy Wife, Happy Life” but a man has to draw the line somewhere.  She operates in much the same manner as the children in that “yes” answers are remembered for a long time.  Evidently there is no statute of limitation on a good deed.  A recent example is getting up in the middle of the night to let McKinney (our 3 month old standard poodle puppy) outside.  At 3 AM when she (the puppy) whines, the wife (after having taken care of this duty for the first few weeks [part of our agreement that we hammered out when deciding to get a new puppy]) asked me to do it this time.  She used her best “I’m tired” voice followed by her “it is dangerous for me to be outside alone at night” voice.  I carefully considered my answer despite having just been awoken from a deep sleep.  I know that I love my wife and I know that I want to do this for her but I also know that if I do it, I will be expected to do it a) more often or b) from this point forward.  I have to be strong and tell her, “No” as a “Yes” answer is not only an agreement to do it this time but henceforth and forever more (possibly even for future puppies).

Another recent example was from this Sunday.  We were running a little behind for church on Sunday morning (not an unordinary thing) and the wife asked me to touch up one of the daughter’s toenails with some polish.  I looked into my crystal ball and saw myself (after a series of cases stating legal precedence) painting not only the daughter’s toenails but also the wife’s (and possibly McKinney’s) and had no other choice but to refuse.  I saw the future with a “Yes” answer and it was not pretty.

A cousin of this concept is the one piece of advise that I give to new or expectant fathers.  I try not to give too much unsolicited advise but I feel that this is so important and universally true that I have to speak up.  I simply tell them that, when considering doing something to entertain their new child, they consider one question, “Will I want to do this one thing 1,000 times over the next several months?”  If the answer is “No” then you have to (no matter how entertaining your actions might me) choose not to do it.  You might be doing some Three Stooges type comedic routine that involves a little pain and (trust me, I know) it might be worth it (such is the power of the laughter of children).  But if you do this thing over and over (and over and over) again (“Do it again, Daddy!”) you may develop long term health issues.  This is one piece of advice that I wish someone would have given to me.

Jon

Five Books

When I was in college I read a lot of books.  Oh sure, there were the books that I HAD to read for college classes but I also read a lot of other books.  I worked as a mechanic at a bowling alley from around 3 PM to 11 PM (or whenever the alley closed).  For the last 5 hours of my shift pretty much all the lanes were being used so there was not a lot of proactive work that could be done (maintenance on the machines).  During those last 5 hours you pretty much waited for something to break down and then you would (run to) fix it.  Between these breakdowns there was not much to do.  Every few months or so we would switch out all the bowling pins (we had 2 sets) and then the massive “cleaning of the pins” took place.  This went on for a week or two and resulted in cramps from the repetitive action used during the process (we had a make shift lathe that we connected the pins to and then proceeded to scuff / clean and then polish the pins).  Other than that though, you killed time during your shift.

There was a TV in the back room but (as you might imagine) the back of the bowling was quite loud.  The TV was hooked up to the cable signal from the bar up front (some 120’ away).  Some mechanic before my time had taken the initiative and ran the wire hooking us up.  The TV we had was in very poor shape.  The CRT screen was sort of sitting in the TV cabinet and mounted about 10’ off the ground in the upper corner of our little mechanics room.  There was no remote for it so channel changing and volume control (as well as on/off) involved a ladder.  That is until another mechanic took a reset button (spares we had from parts for the front ball return) and ran a very long wire along the wall and down to the one chair we had in the room (a very broken down recliner).  We did not have any wire except for the 15” wires we used for the front ball returns.  So, this mechanic, in an attempt not to have to get up and climb a ladder to change the channel had spliced together 40 or so of these wires and we could flip through the channels (going up only as we did not run a wire to the channel down button - there were only 13 channels so this was not a big deal).  Anyway, even with all these creature comforts (did I mention that as an employee we got free cokes and popcorn?) I still got bored with TV.

This was a very good job for me in that I could take those 5 hours and do my studying and homework.  I typically did not have 5 hours of work though so on a good night (where there were few ball return or pin jam issues) so I read books that I got from the local library.  I read both fiction and non fiction with no particular preference (I do remember a great book called something like “How Nintendo Broke Into Our Homes And Enslaved Our Children” – did you know that Nintendo was originally a playing card company and that the first NES had hidden phone jacks {this was pre-internet]?).  I would often have multiple books going at a time.  Some people thought it was odd that I would be reading a half dozen books simultaneously and wondered how I kept track of what was going on in each book.  This is not really that odd I think as people keep track of more TV show plotlines than that (even back then).  I did have to give up reading Stephen King books as the back of a bowling alley at night (when all the lanes are shut off and quiet is a very freaky place without all those scary things going on in your head).

This brings me to the point of this blog, namely the 5 books that I am reading right now.

1. Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind (Intercultural Cooperation and Its Importance for Survival): I am reading this for work actually.  I have a project where I am studying outsourcing and culture and how it affects my particular area at my company (procurement).  I am about 25% of the way through this one and (though I started fast) I am slowing down.  I do have a deadline for this project (to write a white paper) coming up so I need to make some more progress.  This book was actually recommended to my by my pastor (after I explained the gist of my project).  I bought this book (something I rarely do).
2. David Livingstone: Africa’s Trailblazer: I am reading this out loud to the wife and kids.  We have a series of books about missionaries and this is the 2nd one we are reading.  You can tell they took some liberty with the story but for the most part it is a biography.  It is amazing the courage that some people have, whether driven on by religious faith or other forces.
3. I’ll Mature When I’m Dead: This is the latest book by Dave Barry.  Every so often the wife and I will check out a book by Mr. Barry and take turns reading sections to each other.  We take turns as parts are so funny, it is impossible to breathe, let alone read, due to the insane amount of laughing out loud that we are doing.  This book is no different.  The essay on dogs had us in tears.
4. The Guinea Pig Diaries:  This is the 3rd book I have read by A.J. Jacobs.  I have read “The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World” and “The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible”.  This book is a series of smaller experiments (including Project Wimp where he is at the beck and call of his wife for 30 days).  Through all his experiments, he has some great insights on the human condition.
5. The Obamas: The Untold Story of an African Family: I saw a pamphlet at the library where you can check out books on your iPad (among other devices).  We bought the son an iPad (used off of Craig’s List) for his 13th birthday and I have been trying to justify getting another pad device (the HP TouchPad maybe) for myself.  I am trying to use his iPad to do things other than games (like say, my wife, who has a serious addiction to Angry Birds).  I take it to church and use it to look up information for the pastor during Sunday School along with using it as my Bible (iBooks).  I tried to use the maps and GPS during our vacation last week with mixed results.  Anyway, reading a book on the iPad seemed like another way to see if this whole pad thing is for me.  Once I had the app installed, I noticed that almost every book available (there are not that many) were checked out.  This book on the Obamas of Kenya was the first one I found that was available to check out.  I have read one chapter and it is a good book but the iPad is a tad too heavy to use as a book substitute (maybe the TouchPad will be lighter).

I just noticed that I have no fiction in my list.  I am not surprised.  I get on a kick where I read strictly fiction for a while (like say if I discover a new author that I like) and then swing to all non fiction.  Evidently I must be in a non fiction phase at this point in my life.  I do have another book or two that I am in the middle of using the Books 24x7 service that I can access through my company.  These are mostly technical books (Windows 7 Unleashed, SharePoint Designer Step by Step, etc) and I mainly refer to them when I have questions about a feature of some piece of software I am using at the time.

Anyway, there you have it, my current reading list.  I am almost done with books 3 and 4 above so a trip to the library is imminent.  Book 5 is “due” (I have not figured out how to return it just yet) in about a week so I likely will not finish it.  I think I will head to the fiction section though for some balance.

Jon

The Object Of My Anger

The Indiana Department of Transportation has a current project that literally goes through my front yard.  I live on a two lane state highway and it is being widened to four lanes.  Not all of this highway is being widened actually, just a few miles and one of those few miles happens to be adjacent to my driveway.  A while back I was researching the entire project on the INDOT website and was disappointed to learn that the project (that was originally supposed to run from Kokomo to Lafayette) had been diminished only to include a section about 2 miles west of Kokomo to the county line (many miles short of Lafayette).  Funding was lost or funds were diverted to some other project (the INDOT site was not clear).

I do not travel to Lafayette often (my aunt lives there and there is a nice blueberry farm just this side of the town) but when we do I am often frustrated by this winding state road (i.e. no way to pass slow moving vehicles [and by slow moving, I mean those going 45 – 50 mph in a 55 mph zone]).  When this project is over, all we will gain is a nicer ride to the county line (less than 15 miles away [way before the curvy, annoying parts]).

So far the road is not any wider on our end of the project but that does not mean there has not been any activity.  For one thing, the first 20 foot or so of our yard is a disaster area with mounds of dirt, large pieces of trees that have been mowed down in the name of this project, and weeds (that have decided that this is a perfect place to start a colony).  My neighbors have taken different approaches here.  The neighbor to the east has left a 10 foot swath as a no man’s land (i.e. weed colonies) but has continued to care for the area closest to the state road.  The neighbor to the west has basically given up and has allowed the weed colonies to have all 20 feet.  I have adopted a hybrid approach where the part of my yard east of the my driveway is like that of my eastern neighbor and the part of my driveway to the west is like that of my neighbor to the west.

Most (if not all) of the destruction is due to the utility companies (power, gas, phone, etc) as they have cables and pipes that have to be moved.  Sometimes the destruction extends far beyond the 20 foot allotted for the expansion project.  The gas company, for instance, tore up the yard right next to the eastern part of our house to update our gas meter (fitted with a cool wireless device that allows the employee to read the meter from the driveway).  You can tell they had a backhoe or some large piece of machinery there as there were tracks from the wheels of whatever machine they used.

Another company that caused much destruction was the power company.  Their power line poles had to be moved back further away from the road.  Rather than moving the existing ones back, they simply ran new ones and rewired everything.  This caused us to lose a few more large trees than we wanted (and power for a few hours one day).  Two large (like 50 foot tall) trees were the victims of this pole realignment.  Not only did they replace those poles, but also the one that is on the front, western edge of my backyard (resulting in more tracks in the yard).  Now we can get to the real object of my anger.

When the power company replaced the electrical pole in my back yard, they just cut down the old one and left it in my back yard.  Since the pole was next to my fence, they just cut it off at about 4.5 feet (fence height).  So I had this “stump” and also a 20 foot pole laying in the middle of my property.  This had to have happened sometime back in April.  I figured that they (the power company) would come back and finish the job but as April led to May, and May led to June and June to July, the pole (stump and felled part) were still there.  Initially I thought that I might just cut this up into piece myself (I had purchased a chain saw to take care of another tree) but I changed my mind after my mother’s boyfriend told me a story of ruining a chain saw (not his, one he borrowed from my grandfather) when he attempted to do a similar thing.  I guess there is all sorts of tar and gunk in those poles that can really eat up a chain saw motor.  Fortunately I was able to learn from his mistake.  I had half a mind to call and complain to the power company but during April and May we had a lot of rain here in Indiana and I did not want to introduce any more heavy machinery to the terrain of our yard.  So, I simply mowed and weed wacked around it for months on end.  With each mowing, my anger would grow.  How dare this company just leave their stuff laying around my yard!

In general I do not give into anger or allow myself to get angry.  Perturbed might be a better word to use (but titling this blog “The Object of my Perturbment” did not sound right [plus, perturbment is not a word]).  I am an easy going guy, just ask my wife.  She often gets angry with me due to my lack of anger or emotion.  She is beginning to realize (after 14 years of marriage) that she married Mr. Spock.  But even Mr. Spock showed his emotions (maybe once a season) and thus I allow myself to do so as well.

I had myself all worked up but kept putting off calling the power company.  I did run through possible scripts for this conversation in my head.  Zingers that I would use, perhaps a small speech on how the “little man” is abused by this “big company” and so on.  I know I was setting myself up for disappointment in that I would not ever be dealing with anyone who was truly at fault (just some poor secretary or support desk person that was unlucky enough to randomly be assigned my call).  I was almost ready to call them (probably after one more mowing).  However, this morning a wrench was thrown into my grand plans.  The pole (and stump) were gone.  Sometime since the last mowing of the back yard they had come and removed it all.  It has not rained a lot and it has been hot so the back yard has not been mowed (or visited by me) in probably 2 weeks so I have no idea when this removal occurred.  This means that (up to) the last 2 weeks of anger / perturbment (I think this really should be a word) were not needed.  Not only did I waste my (once a season allotted amount of) anger, but I was robbed of the chance to use my zingers and scripted speech.  For some reason, this perturbs me.

Jon

Losing Interest

My son asked me a question the other day.  Actually he has asked me this same question several times over the past few weeks.  That is how he is.  If I do not give him an answer that he likes or is satisfied with to a question then inevitably he will think about my answer for a while and then ask it again.  It is as if he thinks I am holding out on him and (like, say, Google) if he rearranges a few keywords and asks again, the results will be different.  It is not a feature that I am particularly fond of but he is who he is (and he is a little too much like me in this manner for my liking).

Anyway, back to my son’s question.  The question in its original form was “Dad, how to you start to like something again that you used to like?”  It seems that he has lost the love of weather that he once had.  He used to spend most of his time on the internet at sites like weather.com or noaa.gov.  He could rattle of the 10 day forecast with ease and the wife and I never had to do anything other than ask him if we wanted to know the projected high temperature for the day or the percent chance of rain for any given 4 hour period (or, when he was extremely interested in weather, the pollen count).  He is no longer (as) interested in that subject and he remembers enjoying it and wanted to know how to get that love back again.

My various answers (remember, he asked this question more than once and with various keywords changed) range from “People’s interest change from time to time, it’s natural.” to “If you just spend as much time as you used to researching weather, maybe you will start to like it again.” to “Please, go away.”  That last one is my equivalent of the internet connection being down at our house (which happens often enough to be annoying).  None of these satisfied him of course as he wants THE answer that will magically return him to a previous state.  My son, if I knew how to do that, I would be rich.

I feel this way sometimes toward the sport of bowling.  When I was younger, I lived, breathed and ate bowling.  I would never miss the Saturday 3:00 to 4:30 telecast of the PBA on ABC with Chris Schenkel and Bo Burton.  In fact, shortly after I got married, I gave away to a friend of mine 30 or so six hour VHS tapes full of years of PBA telecasts.  If I taped the shows while watching them and paused the recorder during the commercials I could get 5 telecasts on one 6 hour tape.  I went on to become a good youth bowler and eventually a professional bowler.  I hit the local “regional’” tournaments for 3 years and broke even (winning enough over time to pay for gas, hotels, food and equipment).  I had a great time and then I gave it all up when I got engaged.

A few years into my marriage I tried to renew my interest again.  I joined a “challenge” league (where they make the conditions more difficult [including using heavier pins] thus lowering the average scores).  I did this for 2 or 3 years and I did have a good time.  But, it was not like before.  I saw the league as a hassle some weeks.  I ended up hanging up my bowling shoes again and (other than one game of bowling in Argentina in 2007) I have not bowled in over 7 years.  I keep telling myself that I will get back into it someday.  Every once in a while I run into my old bowling balls in the garage (I do not know why I keep them as even if I returned to bowling, I would be at a technological disadvantage using them akin to using a wooden racket in tennis).  I stick my thumb and fingers into the bowling ball and memories rush back in of all the good times I had with the sport.  I then put them back in the bag and move on to whatever it was I was doing.

Son, I do not know how to revive interest in something you once loved.  People change.  Situations change.  Interests change.  It is just a fact of life (not one you have to like but a fact nonetheless).  I am sorry that I do not have a better answer for you.

Dad / Jon

The End

Sadly, this is our last morning here.  Everyone is walking around with a twinge of sadness on their faces.  Part of it is that we have to spend part of this morning cleaning up but mostly they know that our short summer vacation is nearly over.

We hit the Chinese take out last night after a little shopping (aloe was needed for the son’s lobster legs due to too much kayaking).  It was not a good as I remember it.  We brought it back to the late house and watched season 9 episode 20 of Little House on the Prairie.  It was laugh out loud funny as Mr. Edwards meets a man on the road who ends up dying but not before he gets Mr. Edwards to promise to take care of Blanch (who turns out to be an orangutan).  Chaos ensues as Blanches hijinks cause and uproar in Walnut Grove (including some funny scenes with Blanch and Mrs. Olsen).  After the kids went to bed, the wife and I watched Unstoppable which was pretty good although a good 1/3 of the movie had to be stock footage of random trains going down the track.

The wife and I are ready to return home to our own bed.  She misses the dogs too I imagine though Pepper (the dog from the next lake house) visits us often, including this morning during coffee.

This place is very welcoming as this small sign says that is hanging in the kitchen.

We are looking forward to returning next year if possible.  Thanks to my friend for lending us his lake house for the week.  Your “standard rental payment” is waiting for your on the kitchen counter.

Jon

A Teenager Amongst Us

In about 1 hour, I will technically be the parent of a teenager.  Our son was born at 4:22 PM on this date back in 1998.  Since Indiana did not observe daylight saving time back then and since it is / was summertime, that would mean that he was born at 5:22 New York time.  This little trick just puts off having a teenager in our midst by an hour but the wife and I will take what we can get.

This lake house trip was planned so his birthday would occur while we were here.  We were going to come here sometime in July but the timing makes it more special for him.  He is having the time of his life (as is his sister).

There is a cake cooling on the counter and a “1” and “3” candle waiting in a bag for a little celebration later tonight.  I do not have any deep (or any random) thoughts about being the father of a teenager.  I am sure it will make for some interesting blogging down the road though.

Jon

Rituals

This is the 4th time the wife and I have come to this lake house.  Our first two trips were sans children (and, don’t tell the kids, we are hoping the next one will be as well).  Since we have been here a few times, we now the layout of Spencer, IN (the town 10 miles down the road).  Also, we have a few rituals (or traditions maybe) that we do.  One of them is visiting the local Chinese take out (which we probably will do tonight).  Their sweet-n-sour chicken is very good.  Another ritual involves popcorn.

Jiffy Pop is something that is not allowed in our house back home for whatever reason but get the wife here to this location and it is a must.  We bought it on a whim the first time we were down here and just have made it a habit.  We set up the netbook / 20” monitor / external hard drive / speakers with subwoofer and watched on of the final episodes of Little House on the Prairie and enjoyed our Jiffy Pop.  We also bought a bag of Hershey’s Miniatures (not really a ritual, yet) and I offered the kids an option: 2 mini candy bars of their choosing (Hershey’s Chocolate, Hershey’s Special Dark, Krackle, of Mr. Goodbar) or 3 mini candy bars randomly chosen by me.  Everyone chose quantity over quality and we watched episode 19 of season 9.

Well, it is time for breakfast and to see what the day holds for us.

Jon

Nothing Pressing

We woke up this morning with nothing that needed to be done and that trend continues on still.  Breakfast, of course, was on the list but other than the making of the French press coffee, it was not a big bother what with instance oatmeal being the main course.  The breakfast was going to be eggs and sausage but the sausage did not survive the night in the fridge as the light on the inside of the fridge was on all night and the sausage took the brunt of the light’s heat.  Eggs by themselves did not seem appetizing and the would just remind us of the loss of the sausage.

We each took our turn in the shower and then (after a few rounds of Uno) we took a walk up the gravel road to the “main” road and back again.  The daughter forged ahead of us.

Last summer when we were at the lake house, all these fields were full of wildflowers and we had a great walk.  Unfortunately they were all recently mowed down so we only saw a few flowers.

When we got back, it seemed close enough to lunchtime to worry about it and sandwiches were made.  The kids discovered a stash of VHS movies and bickered a bit over which to watch first, Peter Pan or Aladdin (a games of odds and evens determined Peter Pan the premiere).  After lunch, the wife and I headed to the deck for a nap (where she still is at the time of the writing of the blog).

The only thing on our agenda now is to take a swim in the lake and find a decent place for dinner tonight.  This level of nothing pressing is just what the wife and I needed, a perfect vacation.

Jon

Half the Fun Is Getting There

We had a plan.  It was simple.  I would work for 1/2 a day and then we would be on vacation for the duration of the week.  It is good to have a plan.  The problem with this plan is that everything had to go right at work for the first 1/2 of the day.  As you might have guessed, that did not happen.

I am taking over a small job at work that involves about 2 hours of my time every month on the 8th business day of the month.  As luck would have it, yesterday was the 8th business day of the month.  Last month I sort of receive some training but I did not pick up everything I needed to know so that I could do this solo this month.  My manager knows what to do but he does not have the access to do it.  So we were stuck with him looking over my shoulder (virtually) and trying to walk me through it.  It did not help that he was driving to Houston yesterday and had a full day of meetings.  Anyway, long story short, it was 2 pm before I was able to log off and start the vacation.

We had planned to have lunch around 1:00 in Indianapolis and that turned into an early dinner around 3:30 ad Red Robin.  We needed to stop by the lake house owner’s house to pick up some sheets and towels.  After a short visit with him and his new lab puppy, Lego, we were on our way.  We rolled into Spencer, IN, around 6:00 and hit the local grocery store for vacation food (food never allowed in our house in Kokomo, you know, like food that comes in boxes and cans and has words like “instant” on the label).  We finally got to the lake house around 7:00 and got unpacked.  It was very hot and since the house was shut up it was also hot.  We opened all the windows, turned on all the fans and then hit the deck by the lake to enjoy a little breeze while the house cooled down.

The water was calm and peaceful and the bugs were few (though the fish were plenty).  After about 30 minutes the house was tolerable and we did what any family would do while on vacation at a remote lake house, we set up the netbook, external hard drive containing movies, 20” monitor and 2.1 speakers and watched a movie (Flipped, a very good movie) on the screened in porch.  I sipped my Peach Faygo (on sale at Babb’s SuperValu) and the kids enjoyed Black Cherry Faygo and all was good.

The wife and I have been here several times but last year was the first year that we brought the kids.  They have been looking forward to this trip since the day that I mentioned it last month.  Every day one of them would tell me how many days were left before the lake house trip.  Their faces were quite distraught yesterday when I kept working well past noon.  If stares and looks could make me work faster then I would have been done on time.

It is supposed to rain today but clear up by early afternoon.  Hopefully the kids can get some swimming done in the lake then.  There are only 3 good restaurants in Spencer I think so it is not a matter of where to eat but in what order we eat at each place over the next few nights.

Well, the daughter has the Uno deck out and is shuffling (or trying to shuffle) the cards right next to me.  I can take a hint.

Jon

Swiper No Swiping

We have a problem with stealing here at the Dieterman household.  Fortunately it is limited only to the four legged creatures dwelling here.  It started a while back when the wife bought two, identically sized bones from the pet store.  Nina (Doberman) and Oreo (Shih-Poo) seemed always to want whatever bone the other one had.  This made for some comedic entertainment as we watched each of them take the other’s bone, spend 2 minutes gnawing on it, and then try to take back the bone they originally had.  It was like watching two toddlers.

Oreo is by far the sneakiest.  He seemed less interested in chewing on the bones than he did in simply having both of them at the same time (usually on the couch and usually underneath him) while he napped.  If Nina even walked near him and he thought that she might take one of the bones, he went into defense mode and guarded his possessions.

McKinney (Standard Poodle) adds a new level of complexity to this game.  Since her teeth are not quite up to the “big dog” bones, the wife bought her a more suitable bone.  As you can imagine, Nina and Oreo lost all interest in their bones and immediately desired this new bone.  McKinney, still trying to find her way in the pack order, did her puppy best to fit in.  Oreo used his experience and quickly took ownership of the new bone.  Nina, who would go through this bone like it is candy, was forbidden by us from using this bone for her pleasure.

That new bone quickly became too small to be of any use to any dog so the wife bought 2 more.  Nina was still forbidden (though she does sneak a gnaw here and there) and now Oreo would have his own bone and everybody would be happy.  Peace would reign within the pack.

As you might be able to tell from the picture, Oreo has upped his game.  In this picture are the two large bones (pre McKinney era), the original smaller bone (closed to his head) and one of the two newer bones.  He is enjoying a nap while surrounded by his plunder.  You may ask where the other newer bone is located.  It happened to be up on the kitchen table where no dog could get to it otherwise Oreo would have had it up with him for sure.

Oreo is so sneaky that he reminds the wife and I of Swiper from the Dora the Explorer cartoon show.  Whenever Oreo jumps down from his spot on the couch and tries to take another bone, instead of correcting him in the normal way, the wife and I just yell, “Swiper!  No swiping!” and (believe it or not) he understands.  For some reason, the wife and I get a kick out of this.  The kids just think we are insane.

Jon

Homemade Deodorant

We got a call early in the afternoon yesterday.  It was an invitation for an impromptu 4th of July get together.  There were four families in all totaling twelve kids ranging from ages one to thirteen.  The family’s farmhouse we met at is on plenty of land and so there was ample place for the kids to play.  Eight of the twelve kids have parents who are (among other things) farmers so they know their way around a farm.  Our kids were a little out of their element but blended in nicely and had a blast.  There was grilling.  There was homemade ice cream.  There was a good time had by all.

Let’s rewind a bit to moments before the phone call that kicked this whole event off.  I was sort of in a blah mood and just wanted some alone time.  The wife had recently bought an above ground pool with the last of her blow money from when she worked at the pet store and the water was finally ready to swim in (our garden hose does not go through the water softener so we had some rust issues with the water, something my wife was trying to remedy with [among other things] placing tube socks on both the in and out filters [perhaps this whole string of events deserves its own blog entry]).  The wife and kids and 2/3 of the dogs were outside and I was watching sitcom getting what I wanted, alone time.  Thirty minutes later, the phone rang, promises to bring chips and salad were made, and we had plans for the evening.  Plans, plans that included me NOT being alone but rather spending time with (3) other men that are so manly that I might not even score high enough on the man charts to be in their presence.  I knew going in that unless I steered the conversation bus for the evening that I was going to be hopelessly trapped in discussions about trucks, tractors, chickens (or pigs [or both]), farming techniques and probably a brief dialogue about smelling bad after doing some unpleasant (but necessary) farm related task.

To be truthful, only two of the men were in this super manly category.  The 3rd man was an engineer for an automotive company.  This gave him a tactical advantage in that he at least knows about cars and engines and can have something (potentially) to add to a conversation about trucks and tractors (and since we was likely more manly than I [just going with the odds here] he could add to the “smelling bad” portion of the conversation).  We all attend the same church (and even transact the sale of farm fresh eggs after service) so I could only hope that we ended up discussing the modern uses of some remote verse stuck in one of the minor prophets.  We also had having kids and wives in common.  But, history with these other two men told me that family life would only have a minor role in the play probably getting equal billing with “smelling bad”.

OK, let me get to the blog title.  One time during the evening I headed into the house to get something to drink.  We had just finished four innings of kick ball and I was wore out.  The kick ball game was fun.  I had not played in probably 25 years but I still got “it” (well at least compared to 11 year old girls and other 40 year old men).  Anyway, I walked into the house where the wives were and ended up right at the end of a discussion that finished with the line, “Can you send me that recipe for homemade deodorant?”

I think that if you would have asked me 20 years ago to place a wager on whether or not I would ever hear that particular question in my life that I would have bet the house on “no”.  I am glad I did not make that bet.  These wives (including mine) are always looking to 1) try things that are more natural and 2) save money.  In that vein, taken to the extreme, you can see how this kind of subject came up and how homemade deodorant recipe swapping might ensue.  However, there are plenty of other things that I think I would try out that were homemade than deodorant.  Even Señor Google agrees…

Almost all common searches starting with the word homemade are about food.  Laundry detergent tops the list strangely though (and yes we did try making our own homemade laundry detergent before).

Anyway, based on the wife’s intense staring at her HP netbook this morning, I fear for the worse when it comes to the future of my personal fumigant.  I will try to keep you posted.

Jon

Random Photos

I have not decided if I will continue on in my U2 lyric blogs or not.  It is time however for me to clear out the SD card on our low quality camera.  We have a Kodak EasyShare C813 which was actually a Christmas gift from us to our daughter but in reality it was replacing an older Kodak that went belly up.  I chose this model as it took the same type of rechargeable battery and the old camera’s charging dock still worked.  So, we keep the old camera around solely to use it as a battery charger as the new camera, while it takes the same battery, does not work with the charging dock.

Anyway, from time to time the SD card gets full and it is time to rummage through it to see what it was that we took pictures of.  I have blogged in the past that there are an uncanny number of close of photos of my son’s facial features (particularly his nose from some reason) and today’s digging (no pun intended) found a few up close nasal passage photos.  I will spare you those but will move on to some random, low quality photos that I found interesting.

We finally finished out state quarter collection.  Believe it or not, it took us over 3 years to fill this book (Maine and Mississippi were the last 2 in case you were wondering).  It was a very nice feeling as I slid the last quarter into its hole.  I snapped this photo and then emptied the book out and placed the $12.50 on the principal of our mortgage.  I did this as the collecting of the quarters was more fun than just looking at them.  I did keep the book though and have started collecting them again.  At the time of this post we are still 43 shy of filling the book again (and yes, we are missing Maine and Mississippi).

This rainbow lasted for only a few minutes.  It was much brighter when we first saw it then 2 minutes later when I grabbed the camera and put on my sandals to head outside to snap this photo.  While this rainbow was from a few weeks ago, my mother did call me yesterday morning asking me to run outside to see if I could locate the rainbow she was looking at from her porch.  Since she is several miles away and I am surrounded by trees, I could not see it.

McKinney (our new standard poodle puppy) got her first trimming this week.  She is all puppy and Nina (our 3 year old Doberman) is very tolerant of her.  Oreo (not pictured) really wants no part of McKinney’s playful attitude.  I think once McKinney gets a few more months on her, she and Nina will be best of buddies.

This is a picture of an empty box.  The wife took the last of her part time job money and bought an above ground pool this past week.  As I was unpacking it, there was this box.  I can understand the concept of an empty box to make sure that the contents of the pool package stay in place during shipping but what I find incredibly funny is that the box has a part number tied to it.  I can see some Chinese worker (where I am sure this pool was made) yelling, “Hey Chuck, hand me a few of those 54410-EMPTY parts, would ya?”

Thank you for taking the time for this random photo blog.

Jon