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Still Missing

The wife has been complaining for a while now that I NEVER clear out my phone mails. She, being organized, comments upon it every time she has to borrow my phone.

I figured she was probably right, because there were a lot of messages by this point, so I sat down for about 45 minutes yesterday and slowly got rid of everything. And a funny thing happened. As I worked my way back in time I started realizing that there could be a message from my friend Kris there. It probably wouldn’t be anything more than “hey, sorry I missed you, call me.” But at least I’d hear his voice, something that can’t ever happen again. I don’t think I have any videos of us together.

But there was nothing. A whole lot of messages and appointments I’d long since listened to or attended, but nothing from Kris. He’s been gone for about a year now, and I suppose I should be used to the fact. But not yet. Maybe never.

Star Stuff

“For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.”
— Carl Sagan

For more wonderful, wise, and eloquent thoughts, check here.

And if you need a reminder of more wonderful things, click here.

Madison and Village Lights

Two Thursdays ago my wife and I headed over to Madison Indiana, where she had a work conference. My son, just finished with his first year of college, tagged along, and while my wife was busy conferencing, the first born and I wandered around the little community.

It was only our second visit and I’d already forgotten just how lovely the main portions of it are. Madison happens to have the largest contiguous National Historic Landmark in the United States — meaning 133 blocks of beautiful, well preserved older buildings. They’re an architectural feast for the eyes, and then there’s the Ohio River just a few blocks south of the downtown, and the steep hills with beautiful greenery ascending to the north and south. A large state park with stunning views, Clifty Falls, provides a lot of great hiking trails as well as campgrounds and even an expansive hotel if you want to come back and relax after you’ve been roughing it in the wilds.

Introductions

Sometimes I think it’s interesting to chart your life by your interests/obsessions. I suppose for a lot of men my age it starts with dinosaurs or indian tribes or trains, or maybe all three, then branches out into differences depending upon where we grew up, what toys we had, who we played with, etc.

The other day I started thinking about who introduced me to which things that have had a huge and lasting impact upon me, which is perhaps a healthier way to think about all of it.

For instance, my mom introduced me to The Beatles and fantasy fiction, and my father introduced me to sports and gentlemanly behavior. The sports never stuck until I found karate about twelve years ago, but I’ve tried to be gentlemanly. Both had a love of music and reading, and had a wonderfully empathic way to look at the world. Boy, did I love talking story theory with my father. They made sure to introduce me to the playing of musical instruments as well. 

Skunked!

I grew up a city boy. Now, as a city boy in a small mid-western city I was probably a lot more familiar with wildlife than someone born in a vast urban center, but I’m still not fully acquainted with some of the life skills you need to get by in the country, even though I’ve been living here for about twelve years.

Take for instance a burn pile. I’ve never maintained one properly. Despite the wife’s encouragement to burn ours sooner, it’s probably been eight years since I did anything with it. As a result, the burn pile had become a towering mass of sticks and tree limbs. Worse, the manure pile was too close. Manure, you see, is inflammable. (We have so many sticks and tree limbs because we have so many trees. In any big storm we lose a lot of branches.)

Anyway, Sunday I finally went out and started organizing the burn pile so it was safer to burn, and then I had to dig out a safety zone away from the manure. I was out there for most of the day, fairly tired and sore, and right in the final section I found a skunk! Turns out there was a little burrow hidden on the edge of the burn pile.

Last Friday I mentioned that I was reading a Viking series about Harald Hardrada by Poul Anderson, but failed to mention the title. This is The Golden Horn, the first of three books about the hero. I’m still kept at arm’s length, but the tone is growing from me. In talking with my good friend Chris Hocking about it he asked whether there wasn’t a bit of a feel from the sagas in it, and I assented that there was, and I think that the tone grew on me. I’m not sure I’ll immediately jump up and read the next of the books, but I ended up enjoying it.

I still haven’t finished reading my pulp anthology, but as most of my reading has been taking place while I am waiting for my daughter to come out of school or finish some after school activity, I haven’t wanted to bring a fragile old book/pulp along, or drag a laptop to read an e-book (I don’t have a Nook or Kindle, just an emulator on the Macbook).

Spring!

Well, almost. You can tell it’s around the corner because of the way our favorite tree is blooming, or the way I hear chirps all day — you see, we have a half dozen baby chicks. In a few months they’ll be full-grown egg layers and will join the rest of the aging flock, but for now they need to be kept under a warming bulb and monitored closely. They have a tendency to knock over their food bowls, or simply to eat all the food quickly. They need a great deal of food for all that energy they need to grow. You can just about see a difference every day between morning and evening.

The spring projects loom just around the corner as well, including some expensive window replacement and some painting and the inevitable lawn trimming, which I’ve never much cared for. Maybe if I owned a better weed wacker I could muster more enthusiasm for the chore, but ours constantly stops, and then has to be pull started. It gets tiresome.

Oranges

I love a good orange.

Usually this space is reserved for talking about writing, or books, or writers, or games. But today I’m kvetching about oranges.

A couple of years ago I posted with delight that we’d finally found a good source for local oranges. They were sweet and flavorful and, darn it, tasted like oranges. Alas, that brand of organic oranges isn’t carried by the local markets anymore, and all other brands are either sour or simply tasteless. Plus they have really tough texture, which is a by-product, I assume, of some breeding program to make them more resilient. Now chewy AND tasteless!

People must be buying these damned awful things or the markets wouldn’t carry them — but who enjoys them?

Family Matters

I’m back from a long drive back and forth to Pennsylvania to see a good man put to rest.

Any of you frequent visitors know that I don’t talk too much about my family, especially my kids, for privacy reasons. But my daughter put together a video for history class that I thought I’d share. She was determined to get the extra credit points awarded for the best project… and she got them.

Not being up on much modern music, I didn’t know the original song (“Hide Away”). My daughter wrote new lyrics and sang them, then filmed and edited and everything else for the short video. I make a brief cameo as a guy with a sword.

Anyway, here’s the video.

Readers Wanted

While I was growing up in the ’70s and ’80s, video games were in their infancy, and most television shows were pretty bad.

It could be argued that most television shows are pretty bad today, as well, and while that would be true, there are so MANY more to choose from that it’s much easier to find some that are entertaining. I’ve honestly lost count of how many channels we have, not to mention the number of online venues, and when you contrast that to the 3 and occasionally 4 channels I had while growing up, the difference is obvious.