Redistribution Of Heat Wealth

We were at World Market last night and toward the front of the store near the check out lanes they had small containers of facial tissue that had been printed to look like money.  The son picked up on the fact that you would be looking like you were using a $20 bill to blow your nose and said, “Look Dad, you tell us that we do this all the time!”  We had a good laugh and it is true, I do say things like that (insinuating that the kids have a secret agenda to rid me of all my wealth).  I am quite frugal and the kids know this.  The fact that we were in line buying World Market’s in store Electric Reindeer brand wine on super close out ($2.39 a bottle) gave me no room to defend myself (we have the lowest of expectations for this wine but we did buy 4 bottles as there was another 20% discount off of the 50% discount if you bought 4 or more bottles).

Last night as the wife and I were settling into our bed she (as she does most nights) tried to… (hmmm, how can I put this delicately) stick parts of her personage that were cold into parts of my personage that were warm (that about sums it up and those of you who have shared a bed with anyone for any length of time will know exactly what I am talking about here).  I (of course) resisted.  This reminds me a a cartoon that I saw once.  In it you were looking from the hallway through a bedroom door into the bedroom where a man was sitting up in bed reading a magazine.  On the left of the cartoon window there was a woman coming down the hallway in her bathrobe and her feet were encased in two large blocks of ice.  The caption underneath read “Why women breed”.  This (as some of you men can testify) is not too far from the truth.

I have tried to use logic with the wife some nights when the enemy soldiers (her ice cold feet) are invading my fort of warmth but logic is not something that works with this particular enemy.  I have explained to her that there is a couch in the other room and (although it is not as comfortable) it is something to be preferred compared to the current situation.  She simply tells me that I am not allowed to leave the bed (she has a habit of making up rules for these negotiations as suits her immediate needs).  I have offered to shove poor Oreo (our shih-poo) under the covers as a possible compromise (Oreo perks up and is happy to hear his name being mentioned {if he only knew why]).  That offer, too, is declined.  I try to explain to her what the word compromise actually means (you know, when two parties agree to be moved from their original position for the betterment of all involved).  She is well aware of the definition but remains steadfast.  Last night I took off the gloves and called her a Socialist.

Replacing wealth with heat, I tried to paint her as the 99% and me as the 1%.  I own almost all the heat wealth in the world that is our bed.  I explained that her toes (the poor masses) are basically coming at me with pitchforks and chanting some mantra (“Free the Heat” or maybe “Let Us Redistribute the Cold”).  I painted a picture of the small toes carrying signs with pithy sayings on them (“Reheat the Feet” or “Make us Flush and We will Hush”).  I, of course, am the billionaire that owns 99% of the heat wealth and do not understand why I should suffer simply because of her body’s inability to produce this much desired commodity.  There are plenty of other means of gaining heat wealth (the aforementioned small dog, socks, heating pads, etc) that I have paid for (or will happily pay for) if needed.  All these methods will produce the desired end results with much less suffering having to be endured on my part (you know, compromise).  She is unmoved.  It is as if she wants, nay needs me to suffer simply because I am heat wealthy.  I need to be punished for my good fortune.  Yes, she is indeed a Socialist here in this scenario.

So, 2 minutes after this discussion (and you might have guessed this), I am getting the shock of my life with the invading ice warriors creeping into my “territory” taking no prisoners and having no mercy.  The look of pleasure on the wife’s face suggested she had absolutely no pity on the native inhabitants of said invaded region.  In about 5 minutes, all the heat wealth had been redistributed and the masses are appeased and retreat back from whence that came no doubt beginning preparation for tomorrow’s invasion while I huddle in the fetal position desperately trying to regain my lost assets.

I need a new plan for this nightly battle but after almost 15 years of marriage I am beginning to think that this war cannot be won.

Jon

Outsourcing My Body

I am beginning a (3) month experiment in a few days.  I got the idea after reading the last book by one of my favorite authors, A.J. Jacobs.  In his most recent book, My Life As An Experiment, he has a series of small essays about experiments that he tried.  From Radical Honesty (always say what is on your mind) to Unitasking (only doing one thing at a time) he recounts several, month long experiments that he tried with various levels of success.  He has undertaken other, longer experiments from reading the Encyclopedia Britannica from cover to cover to trying to follow the Old Testament laws of the Bible as literally as possible in this day and age (this took a whole year).  He is very honest with his shortcomings and pokes fun at himself more so than at others.  Anyway, I recommend reading any of his stuff.  This brings me to the subject of this blog and what will likely turn into a serious of blogs keep you (dear reader) up to date on my experiment.

In one of the experiments, A.J. Jacobs outsources his life.  He literally hires a few people in India to do everything for him from doing research (for his day job) to reading a bedtime story to his kid at night (using speaker phone).  This experiment actually spawned the idea for the book, The 4 Hour Work Week.  Another experiment involved becoming the perfect spouse.  He literally does everything his wife wants, defers to her on every decision and always thinks of her first when she is not around (including a short mini experiment in always sitting down to use the toilet).  His wife (as any wife would) takes a little advantage of him but that makes it all the more challenging (and fun to read about).

Since moving down here to Texas, the wife has joined a gym.  She and one of her best friends go regularly and even hired a trainer to get them started.  She comes home from working out pumped about the progress she is making and how much better she feels.  She is improving her diet and dragging the rest of the immediate family along with her.  I am happy for her but I have no interest really in changing my lifestyle.  I want to want to change but I do not want to change so I am going to do what any American would do when faced with a job that we do not want to do, I need to find somebody else to do it.

Since I do not want to think about working out (or schedule how or when or what is to be done) and since I do not want to put forth the effort to think about eating more healthy, I am going to outsource this job.  For (3) months I am outsourcing deciding how to care for my body to my wife.  This experiment will begin on January 1 and end on March 31.  I will let her decide what I eat and when I eat it.  I will let her decide when I will exercise, how much I will exercise and what type of exercise that I will do.  This is my Christmas present to her really and she could not be more excited.  In my mind, eating and exercising was really the limit of the outsourcing of the care of my body but she has already (as any normal wife would) began testing the limits of this experiment (before it has even began).  She has spoken of plucking my eyebrows and coloring my hair.  She is looking at my (3) week old beard and deciding if it should stay or go.  I would not be surprised if my wardrobe fell within (what she thinks is) the bounds of this experiment.

I, too, am looking forward to this.  I have regained every last pound that I lost 2 years ago when I was heading toward my 40th birthday and now that I do not have any yard work to do I am not even getting what little bit of fresh air and exercise that my weekly push mowing of my 1/2 acre in Indiana gave me.  I am really looking forward to seeing myself in the mirror on April 1, 2012.  Mostly though, I am looking forward to making my wife happy (Happy Wife, Happy Life).  I will be sure to keep you posted.

Jon

Suspicious Intentions

So the presents are all unwrapped and begun being enjoyed and I have had time to reflect on both what I gave and received.  The wife and I did not buy for each other (though we did get each other gifts but that is a subject [maybe even a series] for another blog).  We bought for the kids and my cousin’s 1 year old child.  The wife did buy for a friend as well mostly though our cash was spent on the kids.

The reason for my reflection is due to a podcast that the wife and I listened to this morning as we sipped our coffee before the kids woke up and the house gave up its quietness.  The podcast is worth 17 minutes of your life (in my opinion) and talked about an experiment with 7th graders.  Basically they gave each kid in the class a treat (passed out randomly).  Some got candy bars, some more healthy choices like raisins.  After all the items were passed out, the kids were asked to rank how happy they were with their gifts on a scale of 1 to 10 (they actually ranked on perceived value) and the average score was 5.  After a bit of discussion, the kids were given 60 seconds to trade with anyone else (the trade agreement must be mutual).  After the trade they again were asked to rank their happiness and now the average score was a little over 8.  Same candy, different kids, 60% more happiness.  This got me to thinking about the gifts that my wife and I received this year from my kids for Christmas and their perceived value.

First of all let me tell that (I am told that) I am impossible to buy for.  I do not think I believe this but I have been told this so many times by so many people that either I am very wrong or there is a serious conspiracy going on here (I am leaning toward conspiracy still).  Couple this fact (or non fact) with my wife’s less than stellar ability to buy the right present (whose genes were passed on to our kids) and you can imagine that I am not always excited when it comes to opening my gifts on Christmas Day.  On the other hand, I am a pretty good gift giver (especially compared to the competition in my household).  Since the kids are forced to shop with one adult when shopping for the other, they (and consequently, the wife) get the benefit of my gift giving skills.  On the other hand, since the wife “helps” the (gift giving gene pool challenged) kids shop for me….nuff said.  Ok, let’s look at the gifts for this year.

• Daughter to Mother: The walls in our house (actually every house we have ever lived in) are woefully bare.  I had seen some cute wooden signs at Bed, Bath and Beyond that caught the wife’s eye.  Since we were on a budget, we opted for some knock offs at Ross.  The daughter bought a 1’ sign that says “Wake up and smell the coffee!” for the kitchen and a 2’ sign that says “Laundry today or naked tomorrow!” for the laundry room.  The wife really liked these and I bought some reusable hooks (the kind that stick to the wall) to hang them on.  Perceived Gift Value when unwrapped: 8
• Son to Mother: When we unboxed the Christmas decoration boxes that we brought with us when we moved, we did not find the wife’s Christmas village houses.  One Christmas time early on in our marriage I had gone wild and bought several Christmas scene houses that lit up, some little figures and animals and some fake snow.  I waited until she had gone to bed, I set them all up and then went and woke her up (slightly after midnight as I recall).  I had all the lights off in the house save for the lights in the little houses.  She was very happy and each year we set up those houses and retell the story of how I gave them to her.  When we discovered that we left those back in Indiana, we were all a little disappointed.  The son and I hit a few stores before ending up at Kohl’s.  Some of the Christmas stuff was already on sale despite being several days before Christmas.  Kohl’s has their own special line of these village houses but (even with the discounted price) they were a bit out of the son’s budget.  With a small loan (Dad to the rescue) he was on his way to the check out line.  Perceived Gift Value when unwrapped: 9
• Son to Dad: I had downloaded a free app on my HP TouchPad that let you play backgammon.  I had never played this game in my life.  I remember the Locke and Walt characters playing this game in the first season of Lost and thought I might like to learn how to play.  Anyway, once I figured out the rules (and figured out that the app was not perfect [some times the computer moved its pieces backwards]) we bought a $5 chess / checkers / backgammon set at Target and began playing.  The set we bought was cheaper than cheap but it was usable.  I had hinted (and hinted and hinted) for months that I would like to have a real backgammon set.  I held off buying one even though I really wanted one.  The son got me a $20 portable set and was very proud of his purchase.  I knew what was in the box the second he proudly showed me his wrapping skills (or lack thereof).  Everyone wants to use this set now and I am being bugged (even as I write this blog entry) to come and play.  My main point here is that this is not really a gift for me as much as it is a gift for everyone.  Perceived Gift Value when unwrapped: 6
• Daughter to Dad: The last time we lived here in Texas we made a weekly trip to the Frisco public library.  Despite being a little further away than the Allen and McKinney libraries, we chose that library as it was a little newer and they did not have any late fees (you just could not check any new items out if you had late items still out).  One thing we started borrowing was old I Love Lucy DVDs.  Instead of renting out the entire set by season (how they are sold), you could only get one disc at a time.  The kids inherited their anal-retentiveness from me and watching (even a comedy) our of order did not sit well.  As a result, we were perpetually waiting on the next disc in the series and someone had it checked out for weeks (since there were no late fees).  I recall watching some from season 1 and a few discs from season 2 but have no idea how close we came to seeing all of either season.  Now I have seen all of the Lucy shows in reruns 100 times over but and I knew I would get more enjoyment out of watching the kids watch these classics than I would in just watching them myself.  And true to that, the wife and I would be crying due to laughter just seeing the kids crack up at Lucy’s antics.  For Christmas this year the daughter got me season 1 of I Love Lucy.  Now I am getting begged to finish ripping these DVDs to our home theater PC so we can watch them all.  My main point (again) here is that this is not really a gift for me as much as it is a gift for everyone.  Perceived Gift Value when unwrapped: 7

The son also bought me a small bag of Jordan Almonds since I had hinted that I liked that snack.  He also kept bugging me to open them so he could try them.  The kids got me good (nay great) gifts this year compared to other years but they played it safe in that even if I did not like the gift, they would at least get some enjoyment out of them.  The wife got gifts that would mostly be enjoyed by her, more tailored to her taste.  I can see this technique being used for giving gifts to me in the future and I guess that is OK.  I mean, they are good gifts but safe gifts as well.

Now, one gift that was given to our entire family from my cousin and her husband was pretty awesome.  We are invited to their house quite often and they have this cool soda making machine.  Even I have fun watching my cousin use this thing to make whatever flavor of soda we are in the mood for at the time.  Low and behold when the kids unwrapped our gift from them we now owned our own soda maker.  The son was ecstatic as he was saving up his money to buy one for himself.  Not only did we have one now (he was weeks away from having enough money) but he could reallocate his money for more important things (like this massive nerf gun).  Perceived Gift Value when unwrapped: 10

Jon

The Listening Project-Week 22

Well another week has passed by and I was able to get through a few more CDs in my listening project.  I worked a 1/2 day this week on Tuesday and had Friday off but I was still able to get through 24 CDs and managed to stay on pace for my 20 per week goal.  You can reference this blog entry for details about this project.  Here are the CDs I knocked off of my list this week.

#	Artist	Album	Date	Again?
424	Charlie Peacock	Last Vestiges of Honor	12/19/2011	Yes
425	Jennifer Knapp	Lay It Down	12/19/2011	Yes
426	Randy Stonehill	The Lazarus Heart	12/19/2011	Yes
427	Enigma	Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi!	12/19/2011	Yes
428	Jim Cole	Leap of Faith	12/19/2011	Yes
429	Switchfoot	Learning To Breath	12/19/2011	Yes
430	Led Zeppelin	Led Zeppelin Boxed Set CD 1	12/19/2011	Yes
431	Led Zeppelin	Led Zeppelin Boxed Set CD 2	12/19/2011	Yes
432	Led Zeppelin	Led Zeppelin Boxed Set CD 3	12/20/2011	Yes
433	Led Zeppelin	Led Zeppelin Boxed Set CD 4	12/20/2011	Yes
434	Kansas	Leftoverture	12/20/2011	Yes
435	Various Artists	Legacy- A Tribute To Fleetwood Mac's Rumours	12/21/2011	Yes
436	Johnny Cash	The Legend Of Johnny Cash	12/21/2011	Yes
437	Various Artists	Lemstone Books Volume 5	12/21/2011	Yes
438	The Call	Let The Day Begin	12/21/2011	Yes
439	Celine Dion	Let's Talk About Love	12/21/2011	Yes
440	Charlie Peacock	Lie Down in the Grass	12/22/2011	Yes
441	Tree 63	The Life and Times Of Absolute Truth	12/22/2011	Yes
442	Global Wave System	Life Equals Death	12/22/2011	Yes
443	Various Artists	Life on the Edge	12/22/2011	Yes
444	ZOEgirl	Life	12/22/2011	Yes
445	Sweet Comfort Band	The Light Years	12/22/2011	Yes
446	Cindy Morgan	Listen	12/22/2011	Yes
447	Smalltown Poets	Listen Closely	12/22/2011	Yes

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

• Charlie Peacock “Last Vestiges of Honor”: This 7 song EP was sent to me by the artist himself.  He was selling some of his CDs via mail order (after he had left his label at the time) and the wife had tried to order from him for my birthday one year.  Nothing had arrived by my birthday but I did get a package shortly after that with a hand written apology for the delay and 2 extra CDs other than the one she ordered.  This was one of those extra CDs.  It is a rerelease of some of his early stuff.  You can hear parts of later songs peppered throughout.
• Randy Stonehill “The Lazarus Heart”: There is a haunting song on this CD called “That’s Why We Don’t Love God”.  Very piercing lyrics!  There is another song that was written by Cherri Keaggy as well that is a highlight.
• Enigma “Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi!”: I have most of Enigma’s full albums and a few maxi-singles.  I first heard them on their single “Sadeness” where they mixed dance beats with Gregorian chant.  That CD is coming up in a few weeks in this project.
• Jim Cole “Leap Of Faith”: This guys sounds exactly like James Taylor and I am told he covers some of his songs in concert.  I had a live cassette of his once but gave it to a friend a while back.
• Led Zeppelin “4 CD Boxed Set”: This 4 CD box set was much more enjoyable than the 4 CD set of the history of jazz that I listened to a few weeks ago.  I picked this up for $5 at a Goodwill store this past summer.  The box that it came in was the size of an LP (and this was sitting with the other LPs actually).  After I opened it up and saw that it was CDs, my initial thought was to resell it on eBay.  I listened to it first and since the going rate on eBay was only about $15, I decided to keep it.
• Johnny Cash “The Legend Of Johnny Cash”: This 21 track CD covers his entire career.  The kids like “A Boy Named Sue” and “One Piece At A Time”.  His cover of the NIN song “Hurt” is haunting.  I have listened to this in the car quite a bit since I got it in the 54 CD eBay auction a month or so ago.
• Charlie Peacock “Lie Down In The Grass”: I have this on LP as well as on CD.  This is his first release.  I remember hearing him first on a weekly radio show called “Top Of The Rock" (a Christian rock top 10 countdown show produced out of Kokomo, IN).  Charlie had 3 songs of this release in the top 10 simultaneously.  Good music despite the obvious low budget he was given to work with.  Charlie actually was part of a trio called Vector before going solo.  He was not the lead singer though.
• Tree 63 “The Life and Times Of Absolute Truth”: I have taken great pains to get all of Tree 63’s releases.  There were 2 CDs released only in the UK (this band is from South Africa) and I got those as a 2 CD rerelease off of eBay (the UK version).  Then there was a fan only release that I got via guessing the correct email address for the admin of their website (that had been apparently abandoned).  This one was easy to get as I found it on the clearance rack at a bookstore.  They even appear on a tribute CD to Michael W. Smith (I have that CD as well).  The band called it quits about 2 years ago but just yesterday I heard a Christmas song on the local Christian radio station that was a duet between Tree 63 and Barlow Girl.  I may have to spend some time hunting that one down.

Many people were on vacation at work this week so despite the 3 1/2 day work week, I still made my quota of 20 CDs.  The Listening Project now takes a week off due to the holidays.  I am currently at 47.1% complete and there are no CD shaped presents under the Christmas tree.

Jon

Multiple 4 AM Heart Attacks

Recently the wife (and I suppose the rest of us in the Dieterman household) have been trying to reestablish pack order.  When McKinney (our 8 month old standard poodle) joined our household there was some jostling for position of course but recently (or maybe for quite some time) Nina has been using what is known as social climbing to try to improve her place in the pack.

I am the alpha male and no one denies this (remember we are talking more about pack order as used by dogs, not by wives).  The dogs all understand that I am in charge.  Nina (our Doberman) goes so far as to look at me after being given a command by someone else.  It is one of those “Really dude, do I have to?” looks.  The wife is an understood 2nd in command.  From there it gets tricky.  The son and daughter should be next in line but Nina is attempting to change that.  Due to this, all dogs have recently lost some privileges (with the exception of Oreo who, as the wife puts it, is really our 3rd child). 

We removed the one chair that Nina is allowed to be on and we have banned McKinney from all furniture.  She had the run of the house when it came to furniture due to her lack of shedding (Nina sheds so she had only the one chair).  We also have given the daughter the job of feeding the dogs and making them do a few tricks before she sets down the bowls.  Both big dogs have also been put back in their crates when we are sleeping at night.

McKinney spent almost all of her nights in her crate normally but one or two nights I allowed her to remain on our bed.  Nina usually gets the run of the house and moves back and forth between the chair (she used to be allowed on) and her crate.  That is until around 4 AM.

On almost any night, Nina will arrive (inches from my face mind you) at 4 AM and “announce” that she needs to go outside.  Ignoring her really is not an option as she is quite insistent.  Her barking is like one of those alarm clocks that gets progressively louder the more you ignore it.  No, you cannot ignore her for long.  Sending her to her crate is more akin to hitting the snooze button then turning off the alarm.

In her defense, she really does need to go outside.  Her gastrointestinal clock is set for the early AM and it is quite consistent.  She is out and back in usually in less than 5 minutes and the I go back to bed.  The wife claims not to hear Nina (I have my suspicions about this) so it is always I that has his sleep interrupted.  Due to this, I have not had a straight 8 hours of sleep on a regular basis for a long, long time.

When I wake up at 4 AM (or rather when I am woken up), I usually use the restroom myself and also get a drink of water.  I have 5 minutes to kill while Nina is outside taking care of her business and since I do this almost every night I have fallen into a little bit of a routine myself.  First, I head toward the kitchen (where the back door is located) and flip on a light.  Usually I flip on the light over the stove as it produces the smallest amount of light and I do not want to wake the kids.  Next I let out Nina and then I get a drink of water from the kitchen sink.  I then head back into our bedroom and into the master bathroom that is connected to our bedroom.  I am in there for a minute and then I head out and then I have a heart attack.  Let me explain, but first let me show you this picture.

Sorry for the poor quality.  The lighting is not very good in our bedroom and this was taken with my cell phone.  For our needs though it will suffice.  The door on the right is to our bathroom.  To the left (but not in this photo) is the door out of the bedroom.  Now, as I previously mentioned, I first go into the kitchen (to the left of this picture) and turn on a light while letting Nina outside.  I leave that light on while I head to the bathroom (again, the door to the right here).  As I am leaving the bathroom, I turn off the bathroom light.  Now the only light on in the house is in the kitchen and I am walking from darkness into that (small) light.  Please note the globe on the top left of the bookshelf.  It sits about the same height as my head and is (being a globe) of course round.  To my 4 AM eyes (aided by the poor lighting) this appears as a round shadow at the same height of a human head.  My body, night after night, initially interprets this shadowy figure as another human.  This, dear reader, is where my heart gives out every morning.  Morning after morning I interpret this circular shadow the same way, only for a moment mind you, but just long enough to have a heart attack.  After the adrenaline kicks in, my senses come back to me and I see it for what it is (just a harmless globe).  I then go let Nina back into the house and go back to bed.

I do not sleep usually as the adrenaline is still there denying me rest.  Sometimes I get 15 minutes of fitful rest before 6 AM arrives but either way, my real sleeping is done for the night.  Nina has no trouble going back to sleep.  The wife (remember she denies even knowing that Nina wants out or that I take care of this).sleeps on without interruption.  Oreo (who is usually “sharing” my pillow by this time of the night) is mildly interrupted but has no trouble returning to his slumber.  It is only I that is inconvenienced in all of this.

This is why I am excited about the pack reordering exercise that we are going through in the Dieterman household.  Nina in her crate equals more sleep for Jon.  Also, my heart can use a break.

Jon

The Listening Project-Week 21

Well another week has passed by and I was able to get through a few more CDs in my listening project.  I worked a 1/2 day this week on Friday but I was still able to get through 22 CDs and managed to stay on pace for my 20 per week goal.  You can reference this blog entry for details about this project.  Here are the CDs I knocked off of my list this week.

#	Artist	Album	Date	Again?
402	Jacob's Trouble	Jacob's Trouble	12/12/2011	Yes
403	Alanis Morissette	Jagged Little Pill	12/12/2011	Yes
404	Jars Of Clay	Jars Of Clay	12/12/2011	Yes
405	dc Talk	Jesus Freak	12/12/2011	Yes
406	Jocelyn Enriquez	Jocelyn	12/12/2011	Yes
407	John Denver	John Denver's Greatest Hits	12/12/2011	Yes
408	John Michael Montgomery	John Michael Montgomery	12/13/2011	Yes
409	Lyle Lovett	Joshua Judges Ruth	12/13/2011	Yes
410	Bryan Duncan	Joyride	12/13/2011	Yes
411	Roxette	Joyride	12/13/2011	Yes
412	Judson Spence	Judson Spence	12/13/2011	Yes
413	U2	The Joshue Tree	12/14/2011	Yes
414	Various Artists	Jump In Soundtrack	12/14/2011	No
415	Various Artists	Jumping The Highest	12/14/2011	Yes
416	Jennifer Knapp	Kansas	12/14/2011	Yes
417	Kim Boyce	Kim Boyce	12/14/2011	Yes
418	Kim Hill	Kim Hill	12/14/2011	Yes
419	Belly	King	12/15/2011	Yes
420	Delirious?	King of Fools	12/15/2011	Yes
421	Charlie Peacock	Kingdom Come	12/16/2011	Yes
422	Resurrection Band	Lament	12/16/2011	Yes
423	Bryan Duncan	The Last Time I Was Here	12/16/2011	Yes

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

• Jars Of Clay “Jars Of Clay”: I have a few more CDs by this band but this is still my favorite.  They do have the last track annoyingly long (27 minutes) with mostly silence but a few small songs scattered throughout.  I think at one time I had converted these into individual tracks but those were no where to be found.  There are several CDs in this project that are like this.  I do allow myself to fast forward past the silence to get to the actual music.
• dc Talk “Jesus Freak”: I recently introduced this band to my son who is a big TobyMac fan.  He was a little disappointed that TobyMac was not featured on every song but he does love the title track.  This was the CD that put this band on the map (and spawned an actual hit song on the radio "- “Between You And Me”).
• John Denver “John Denver’s Greatest Hits”: Don’t judge me.
• Lyle Lovett “Joshua Judges Ruth”: I saw Lyle Lovett (and his Large Band) for the first time when watching Austin City Limits.  Awesome and funny.  Not quite country, not quite big band, hard to fit in a category but very enjoyable.
• Bryan Duncan “Joyride” and “The Last Time I Was Here”: I first heard this singer as the lead singer of Sweet Comfort Band.  Once that band broke up, Bryan went solo and the lead guitarist formed Allies (with the Butterfly Kisses guy as the lead singer).  I have a few of his releases on LP as well.
• U2 “The Joshua Tree”: I messed up in my ordering this week.  When I am going into the office to work, I usually copy the next few CDs onto my mp3 player.  This album should have come after the Lyle Lovett (Joshua Judges Ruth) CD but since it starts with a “The” I missed it when copying over CDs.  I saw U2 on the tour that supported this CD.  Horrible seats in a horrible (for sound) venue but would go again if I had the chance.
• Various Artists “Jump In Soundtrack”: And the YES streak ends here at 60 in a row.  The previous streak was 41.  This CD came in the 54 CD auction that I won a few weeks ago (I think).
• Jennifer Knapp “Kansas”: Think of a Christian Melissa Etheridge only softer.  Good stuff.
• Delirious? “King Of Fools”: I remember buying this used from the local Karma Records.  This is their first studio release (they had 4 live EPs before this – which I own as a 2 CD set).  Very U2-ish / Coldplay-ish (though they predate Coldplay).  Good stuff.
• Charlie Peacock “In The Kingdom”: Probably my least favorite CP CD.  This is his last studio album of all new material (though he has since then released a jazz CD).
• Resurrection Band “Lament”: I had a hard time finding this CD as I only discovered it after it was out of print.  Rez Band has been around since the 70’s and have a ton of releases.  This is their darkest (and my favorite).

I am up to 44.6% complete in the project.  My work is forcing us to take the last week of the year off so I think I will be behind my 20 per week pace when the new year begins.  There might be CDs under the Christmas tree too!

Jon

Ten Thousand Gallons

I am probably slightly off in my count but I think this is my 600th blog.  I have a few older blog posts that don’t really count in my total for reasons that I won’t go into at this time).  It all began in July 2006 with this post.  The first 400 blogs or so were on Xanga. A little over a year ago I switched over to Blogspot full time (I was double posting on both sites for a short time) but the Xanga blogs are still out there.  I began copying them over to this blog site but it was very time consuming and now (due to some changes at the Xanga site) it is even harder to do.  I imagine it would take something like being laid off at work to allow me enough time to migrate them all.  In the end, it is probably the case that only I care.  OK, enough of this, on to blog #600 (ish).

Let me first start with a summary of my water bill for the last 12 months that I lived in Indiana.  I have assembled the data in this easy to follow table for your convenience.

Month	Billed Amount
October 2010	$0.00
November 2010	$0.00
December 2010	$0.00
January 2011	$0.00
February 2011	$0.00
March 2011	$0.00
April 2011	$0.00
May 2011	$0.00
June 2011	$0.00
July 2011	$0.00
August 2011	$0.00
September 2011	$0.00*

(* denotes partial month)

As you many have surmised, I did not pay for water at my home in Indiana.  We were out in the country and we used well water.  Now, there was some expense in paying for the electricity for the pump that brought us water out of the well and into our house but basically the water was free.  This is not the case here in Texas.

For the city of McKinney, the water bill is combined with the sewer and trash / recycle pickup service.  There are a few misc. surcharges thrown in and all in all my first to month’s bills were around $100 each.  This month’s bill is actually higher than my electric and gas bill (they are combined too)!  This sounded odd to me so I studied my water / sewage / trash / recycle bill for a clue.  I was hoping that there would be some indicator as to why the bill was (in my opinion) so very high.

I grabbed my reading glasses (yes, I bought a pair of cheap reading glasses a while back) and looked for a clue.  The only thing that I saw that was intriguing was my meter reading.  For the time span of the bill, our house had used 10 units.  I had no idea what that meant so I called the number on the bill for help.

I was met with the usual “press 1 for this, press 2 for that” prompts but there was not a “press X for help with what a unit is” so I opted for 0 and hoped for the best.  The lady that answered was pleasant enough and explained to me that each unit represented 1,000 gallons of water.  I did the math quickly in my head (I majored in math in college) and came to the conclusion that this meant we had used 10,000 gallons of water in the past month.  To put this amount in perspective, a normal size swimming pool has roughly 20,000 gallons.  This would mean that we would fill 6 swimming pools with our annual water use.  Anyway, 10,000 seemed like a high number so I asked her if that was a normal amount for a family of four.  She indicated that it was on the high end but within the normal range.  Before we concluded our call she gave me a little advice.  She noted that the sewage portion of the bill uses the months of December, January and February as a gauge of sorts.  They figure that part of the water used in the summer months would be for watering the lawn but not so in the winter months.  She indicated that if we conserved water in these coming months, it would help us out going forward with that portion of our bill.  I thanked her for the advice but noted that we were likely going to move in February.

10,000 gallons!  Even now that I have thought about it for a while, it still seems high.  That is 330 gallons per day.  That is about 14 gallons per hour.  This almost a quart of water used every minute!  I started to think about what we do that uses water.  I did find this site that seemed interesting.  After you punch in your daily water use it does a calculation for you.  My inputs returned just over 200 gallons of water so something is not adding up here.  Here is there estimates used when doing the calculations…

• Bath: 50 gallons
• Shower: 2.5 gallons per minute
• Teeth brushing: 1 gallon
• Hands/face washing: 1 gallon
• Face/leg shaving: 1 gallon
• Dishwasher: 20 gallons/load
• Dishwashing by hand: 5 gallons/load
• Clothes washing (machine): : 10 gallons/load
• Toilet flush: 3 gallons
• Glasses of water drunk: 8 oz. per glass (1/16th of a gallon)

The last one seems a little obvious and is a little overkill really.  Does anyone drink so much water that it matters in the overall summation of their water use?  Other than the kids taking longer showers that is necessary, I don’t think we overdo it really in any of the above areas.  I suppose that the sprinklers could add a bit (they are set to go off in the middle of the night twice a week).  At any rate, I think I will have to live with the 10 units that we use.

I did remove the trash / recycle part of the bill and calculated that each gallon of water costs us $0.009 (just less than a penny) so even saving a gallon here or there is not going to give me much of a monetary savings.

Looking back at my first blog, its subject only came up due to water issues at a house we had at the time.  It seems I have not made much progress in 6 years of blogging.

Jon

This Listening Project-Week 20

Well another week has passed by and I was able to get through a few more CDs in my listening project.  I worked a 1/2 day this week on Thursday and lost almost all of my listening time on Wednesday due to tons of meetings at work but I was still able to get through 20 CDs and managed to stay on pace for my 20 per week goal.  You can reference this blog entry for details about this project.  Here are the CDs I knocked off of my list this week.

#	Artist	Album	Date	Again?
382	Pat Benatar	Greatest Hits	12/5/2011	Yes
383	Santana	Greatest Hits	12/5/2011	Yes
384	The Doors	Greatest Hits	12/5/2011	Yes
385	James Taylor	Greatest Hits Volume 2	12/5/2011	Yes
386	Various Artists	Heart & Soul Hallmark	12/5/2011	Yes
387	Various Artists	The History of Jazz Disc 1 - The Early Days	12/6/2011	Yes
388	Various Artists	The History of Jazz Disc 2 - The Big Band Years	12/6/2011	Yes
389	Various Artists	The History of Jazz Disc 3 - The Swing Era	12/6/2011	Yes
390	Various Artists	The History of Jazz Disc 4 - The Be-Bop Revolution	12/6/2011	Yes
391	James Taylor	Hourglass	12/7/2011	Yes
392	Idle Cure	Inside Out	12/7/2011	Yes
393	Nate Sallie	Inside Out	12/7/2011	Yes
394	White Heart	Inside	12/8/2011	Yes
395	All-Star United	International Anthems For The Human Race	12/8/2011	Yes
396	Gloria Estefen	Into the Light	12/8/2011	Yes
397	Dakota Motor Co.	Into the Son	12/8/2011	Yes
398	The Call	Into the Woods	12/9/2011	Yes
399	Various Artists	Isaiah 53:5 (A Tribute To Stryper)	12/9/2011	Yes
400	The Who	It's Hard	12/9/2011	Yes
401	Reba McEntire	It's Your Call	12/9/2011	Yes

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

• Pat Benatar “Greatest Hits”: The week began with 4 straight Greatest Hits CDs.  I think I could have done with less than 20 songs on this one.
• Santana “Greatest Hits”: I had never heard of any of these songs on this early best of from Santana.
• Various Artists “The History of Jazz (4 Disc set)”: These almost caused The Listening Project to stop.  This 100 song set is over 4 hours in length and came in the 54 CD eBay auction that I won a while back.  At one point during this marathon session on Tuesday I remember thinking that Louie Armstrong probably died at the hands of a concert goer that was fed up with his scat singing.
• Idle Cure “Inside Out”: Idle Cure was one of the first artists on a Christian record label to attempt arena rock.  Their later releases relied heavily on Bob Carlisle (of Butterfly Kisses fame) to sing the chorus.  I imagine they were not that great to see in concert.
• The Call “Into the Woods”: I was pumped when this was finally released on CD.  One of the few CDs I paid (near) full price for as I recall.
• Various Artists “Isaiah 53:5 (A Tribute To Stryper)”: I gave this a YES only due to Blood N Fire’s cover of Loving You.  The rest of the songs are truly forgettable.

So I kept pace this week getting in my 20 CDs.  I also did not purchase any CDs.  I am up to 42.3% complete in the project.

Jon

The Dad’s Table

Sunday was a busy day.  Normally I like to keep things simple on Sundays.  We get up and get ready for church, go to church, then return home and pretty much just relax for the rest of the day.  Getting in a nap is a bonus.

This past Sunday though was a bit different.  Our (former) neighbors invited us to pose for some photos that we might be able to use for a Christmas card photo.  The husband works for a company that sells, well, OK, I cannot really describe what exactly he or his company does but there is a showroom of the things that they sell and they are perfect for posing in front of for pictures.  I snapped a few pics with my new cell phone…

There were tons of Christmas trees.  Short ones, tall ones, skinny ones, pink ones, blue ones, etc.

There were tons of decorations as well.  I could have taken 100 photos probably and still not got them all I think.

Did I mention there were a lot of decorations?  Anyway, we posed for a few photos and then waited on the other families that had joined us there to finish there pictures as well and then we headed back home.

Actually no, we did not head home, we headed toward home but stopped for a very late lunch with the families that joined us for the photos.  There were 3 families and 13 of us all in total (plus one 8 month old infant).

Let me stop here for a moment and let you know that I really hate eating out with a big party.  I always feel like we are inconveniencing the restaurant, the wait staff and probably the other patrons.  I usually let all this ruin it for me and cannot really think of a time that I enjoyed a time out with a large group of people at a restaurant.  My wife just laughs at me but it really is stressful to me.

The largest table this restaurant had only seated 12 and so we had a problem.  There were suggestions of a kid’s table and there were enough older kids to pull this off.  This is one of the reasons I do not like eating with a large group, it takes too long to make a decision.  Then to my surprise a dad (not me) piped up with a suggestion of a dad’s table.  There were 3 dads and if we got our own table then the table of 12 would work just fine for the balance of our party.

I laughed at first at this suggestion.  I mean, come on!  There is no way my wife would go for this (and probably why the thought never entered my mind).  But, the other wives did not balk at the idea immediately and I began to get my hopes up a little.  I was in uncharted territory here but if this thing actually happened I could see it becoming a tradition.  There was a lot at stake here and I waited nervously for it all to play out.

The weak link here was the 3rd dad (not me and not the one who suggested this idea).  This 3rd dad had 3 kids (including the previously mentioned infant).  He was truly the weakest link here and all our dad hopes were riding on his wife’s reaction.  To our joy she conceded and allowed us to find a nearby table for 3.

We had a great time.  We talked about our work, fatherhood, sports (a little) and really had a good time.  The kids did well enough at the big table to allow us to enjoy our appetizer and meals in peace.  I kept a wary eye on the infant and (more importantly) the face of the mother of the infant but she was a trooper.  An hour later we were paying the bill and saying our goodbyes.  I actually enjoyed myself though technically I was not with a large crowd but rather just 2 other guys.

I will leave you with one more photo.  The oldest child of the dad of the infant had these really cute shoes on for her Christmas pictures.

Jon

A Resurrected Blog Type

A while back I used to blog on occasion under the topic “Random Low Quality Pictures”.  The premise would be that I would find something amusing when I was out and about but then forget about it.  Eventually, I would take all the photos off my phone (if the memory card was filling up) and then cherry pick the best ones (or the ones that I remember the reason of why I took the picture.  Through in a pithy comment or two and WHAM, you had a blog.

Eventually I gave up my cell phone but continued on the tradition by using the wife’s phone.  I changed the blog topic to “Random Low Quality Pictures From the Wife’s Cell Phone” but it was essentially the same concept.  After a while (and a van crash that took with it the wife’s cell phone) we were demoted down to a phone that did not have a very easy method for getting the pictures from it to a blog and so I abandoned this type of blog.

As of last week, I now have a cell phone again.  I found my old memory card and it worked with my new phone so I have been snapping random pictures again.  I hesitate to call them low quality since technology has come so far since I first began so I am just going to call this…

Random Pictures From My Phone

Recently my mother and mother-in-law came for a 5 day visit.  I think it was technically 4 days since they arrived Monday afternoon and left Friday afternoon.  One great thing they did was drive down my beloved Buick that I left back in Indiana when we moved down here.  The dogs did not adjust well to them staying with us as their normal routine was interrupted.  Oreo was effected less than McKinney and Nina.  As you can see in these pics, Oreo was happy as long as there was a lap to lay on (from left to right above is my mother, my mother-in-law, and my wife).

Speaking of dogs, our friends from the Austin area were up our way to pick up a new puppy (actually 2 puppies).  I only snapped a pic of one of them (above).  It was a good visit and Oreo seemed happy that he actually was not the smallest dog in the house for a short time.  The puppy above is either Dixie or Blossom (I think it is Dixie).

FUYU for a product name just seems wrong.  We recently bought a Costco membership and I saw this while wandering around.  That is all I got to say about that.

The daughter turned 10 today.  The big 1-0!  We went out for a birthday dinner to her favorite restaurant, Macaroni Grill.  I like that we can draw on the table and some time between the appetizer (some bruschetta for the wife and I) and the main course (fettuccine alfredo for my 10 year old [that does not feel right to say that]) I took the time to draw her a birthday cake.  She is heading down the street to a friend’s house to spend the night and she was thankful for the gift we gave her (Punky Brewster Season 3).

Well that about does it for this entry of Random Photos From My Phone.

Jon

The Listening Project-Week 19

Well another week has passed by and I was able to get through a few more CDs in my listening project.  I worked a 1/2 day this week on Thursday and lost almost all of Tuesday due to circumstances beyond my control but I was still able to get through 16 CDs and managed to stay ahead of my 20 per week goal.  You can reference this blog entry for details about this project.  Here are the CDs I knocked off of my list this week.

#	Artist	Album	Date	Again?
366	Dave Matthews Band	Before These Crowded Streets	11/28/2011	Yes
367	Amy Grant	Behind the Eyes	11/28/2011	Yes
368	Blondie	The Best Of Blondie	11/28/2011	Yes
369	KC And The Sunshine Band	The Best Of KC And The Sunshine Band	11/28/2011	Yes
370	Third Eye Blind	Blue	11/28/2011	Yes
371	Bon Jovi	Bounce	11/29/2011	Yes
372	The Kinks	Come Dancing- The Best Of The Kinks 1977-1986	11/30/2011	Yes
373	Men At Work	Contraband- The Best Of Men At Work	11/30/2011	Yes
374	Teddy Pendergrass	The Essential Disc 1	11/30/2011	Yes
375	Teddy Pendergrass	The Essential Disc 2	12/1/2011	Yes
376	Sting	Fields Of Gold (The Best Of Sting 1984-1994)	12/1/2011	Yes
377	Various Artists	Girls Night Out Disk 1	12/1/2011	Yes
378	Various Artists	Girls Night Out Disk 2	12/2/2011	Yes
379	Duran Duran	Greatest	12/2/2011	Yes
380	James Taylor	Greatest Hits	12/2/2011	Yes
381	Journey	Greatest Hits	12/2/2011	Yes

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

• Dave Matthews Band “Before These Crowded Streets”: After receiving the 54 CD eBay auction, I suddenly find myself the owner of a lot of Dave Matthews stuff.  I think I like it.
• Blondie “The Best of Blondie”: And so begins a 2 week journey into a lot of Best Of CDs.  10 of the 16 this week were Best Of’s in fact and I will start next week out with 4 in a row.
• KC And The Sunshine Band “The Best Of KC And The Sunshine Band”: The wife and I are shocked at how many KC and the Sunshine Band songs we know.  I cranked up this CD and the wife and I (kind of) danced to it while our kids looked at us and asked questions like “What is a booty and why would you want to shake it?” and “Why is the word ‘boogie’ in almost every song?”
• The Kinks “Come Dancing- The Best Of The Kinks 1977-1986”: I think I want to be a fan of this band more than I actually am.
• Men At Work “Contraband- The Best Of Men At Work”: How does this album contain more than just 2 songs?  OK, maybe they were much bigger in their native land than on American radio in the 80s.  I do recall hearing that they lost a lawsuit that claimed they stole the flute part from the song “Down Under”.
• Teddy Pendergrass “The Essential”: I have never heard of this artist but if your best of takes 2 discs you have to be good, right?  I do not think I would play this just to listen to it but it would be good background music for a party.
• Various Artists “Girls Night Out”: Finally, I own “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” and “It’s Raining Men”!
• Duran Duran “Greatest”: This is the 2nd Best Of CD that I own from this band.  The first one (Decade, that I reviewed in Week 10) focused on their first 10 years and this one has some of their newer stuff.  Still a lot of repeats though.
• James Taylor “Greatest Hits”: I also have Greatest Hits Volume 2 that will be in next week’s list.

I am a scant 1 CD ahead of my 20 / week schedule having had back to back bad weeks.  The good news is that I did not buy any new (to me) CDs to add to this collection.  I stand at 40.1% complete and am still on pace for a June 2012 completion.

Jon