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this pear is, beep!, $100


Hi late-night Wednesday people, or early-morning Thursday people if you’re technical. Oh, and hello Thursday morning people, you count too. I’m sitting here alone listening to music and writing. It’s what I do. Look out, here comes the blog…

Tonight I had a funny series of thoughts that I thought might be interesting to document as a way of exposing just how anal I can be at times.

Setting the scene: Sharaun’s off at a hair appointment and I’m down on the floor playing with Keaton. Currently, we’re playing a new game I’ve just invented: Grocery Store. I’m taking the little plastic fruits and vegetables out of her toy shopping basket one-by-one and waving them over a pretend scanner in the coffee table, of course making a “beep” of recognition each time an item is successfully scanned. As I ring up her items, I hand them to her in turn and she puts them in a bag. Suddenly, I get a brilliant idea: This game would be so much more fun if she had some pretend money to spend on each item. My brain races, the process outlined below summing up the progression:

Oh, I should get her a little wallet to hold the fake money in.
…
No, wait, girls have purses. Not wallets.
…
Oh, she totally has toy purses, several of them, in fact. I’ll go find one.

I tell Keaton to “hang on” as I set out in search of one of her play purses. Unfortunately, my efforts turn up nothing (despite the fact that I seem to be constantly tripping over things like toy purses on my lights-out nighttime walks to the bathroom). I instead find some small paper bag with string handles. What this bag could actually be for, I have no idea – it seems to be void of any function save serving as an utterly useless miniature replica of a larger and, antithetically, quite useful bag. I decide it might be good for holding money, and grab it in a hurry to get back to the living room before my daughter has lost all interest in our game of Grocery Store. On the way back, my mind drifts again:

Now I need some play money.
…
I could do quick green marker drawings on some printer paper and cut it up.
…
No, that’ll take too long… she’ll get bored before I’m done and my efforts will be wasted.
…
Monopoly. We have Monopoly. Monopoly has fake money in it.
…
I remember my brother and I used to play with that fake money all the time.

I make a hard right as my left leg clears the baby-gate blocking access to the hallway, heading for the coat closet near the door (which, interestingly, contains nary a coat… and is instead stuffed full with a vacuum cleaner, steam cleaner, and a shelf piled with our board game collection – a coat closet usage model borrowed wholly from the model my parents followed when I was growing up). All the while I’m thinking:

Do I really want to borrow money from the Monopoly game? I know that it’s probably just going to be abused and eventually lost. Then the Monopoly game will be missing money when we want to play it next.
…
C’mon, when is the last time we actually played Monopoly? In fact, have we ever played it?
…
But, the game will be missing money!

Against all my OCD urges, I grab the Monopoly box and open it up and… Horror of horrors! This is a brand new Monopoly set! My mind processes swiftly:

For crap’s sake, this money is still all wrapped up in cellophane! Each denomination containing the proper “virgin” amount of bills, each bill crisp and new and untouched!
…
I mean, if the thing was already well played-with and the corners of the twenties were bent and curled already… maybe I wouldn’t care so much, but I’m about to knowingly deprive future Monopoly games of hard cash. What will that future banker do?
…
What if that future banker is me? How will I live with the guilt? What if someone needs twenties? Will I have to do that novice crap-banker move where I buy them off other players for hundreds?!
…
But, Keaton… awww who the heck cares?

In the end, the above proceedings took all of a minute and I ended up having one of the most interactive playtimes I’ve had with Keaton in a long time. I sold fruit, she bough fruit; I sold vegetables, she bought vegetables. I beep-scanned them all, gave her change and even offered her friendly “good evenings” and “have a nice days,” as any cashier worth their salt would. Even though she did grossly overpay for an orange once, $500 is pretty dear for a fruit you know. I was honest though, and threw in a one-third scale plastic banana and a pressure-molded broccoli floret on the house.

Evaluating the impact to the integrity of a board game over the immediate joy of playing with my daughter… Those are the thought processes I’m up against, y’all… Lord in Heaven help me out once in a while.

Goodnight.

Posted on

wheating, or wheated, or whatever


Monday night. Two glasses of wine into the evening alone, and fresh off a late burst of cleaning to recline sweaty on the couch and tackle a blog for the day. Think I have it? I do. Let’s go.

Just last week, my frustrations with the state of my little postage-stamp of Northern California real estate had reached a pinnacle, and I was ready to pay hired labor to get things in order. On my list: fix the fence, do some landscaping to a small patch of front-yard land which has lain barren and weed-ridden for four years now, and re-plant the slope above our retaining wall in the backyard. I had become so fed up with it all that I actually began making phone calls and leaving voicemails requesting free estimates.

The Lord, however, deigned that this was not to be the road He’d have me take. No, instead, the work I reluctantly began on Saturday fixing the fence was meant to invigorate me anew, to stoke the coals within me and make me remember that, when somewhat motivated, my own hands work just as well as a paid laborers (albeit more slowly and less confidently). . The relative ease of the task has inspired me, and I’m once again motivated to do some work on my own behalf – starting with that landscaping in the front sideyeard. Time to order up some dirt and rocks (I still refuse to believe I actually pay for dirt and rocks) and get started. Maybe my house won’t be referred to be neighbors as “that blight on the corner” anymore… well, maybe.

Oh, I’ve been meaning to mention – my wheat finally started wheating, or wheated, or whatever. Yup. While I’d still be hesitant calling the experiment a smash success, at least I’ve got seedheads on a few stalks now. Seems they really did need the slightly warming weather and extra sun (which makes me wonder if I really did get “winter wheat” seed or not). But, with the thirty or so individual grains I should be able to harvest before I have to clear the soil for Spring planting, I figure I can make one heck of an oyster cracker or something. Maybe one really thin Wheat Thin? Eh, like I said when I started the whole thing, I can still just mill the seed I bought to plant in the first place – and I likely will do that as the base for this Spring’s attempt at a sourdough starter. It did make me happy though, that the thing wasn’t a complete failure (pretty close, but there’s still time for more seed to show I suppose).

Before I go, I wanted to pass along this awesome photo-essay (NSFW) I found linked from Fazed. Be warned, it’s very not safe for work – but I found it extremely… hard to stop looking at. As one commenter put it, “compelling and disturbing.” I know it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but I seriously found it brilliant, beautiful, and sad, in a I-am-human kinda way. Maybe bookmark and save for when you’re on your own internet dime… if you dare.

Chugga-chugga-ch-ch!! Goodnight!

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party’s over


Greetings from a sore-muscled Sunday evening… late evening, at that.

I attribute the sore muscles to the rather minuscule amount of manual labor I did over the weekend while working to repair the fence we lost in the storms over a month ago. Saturday, after my Spring-inaugural lawn mowing (first of the season), I tore down the four sections of fence hanging on busted posts. Erik and Pat stopped by for some assistance yanking those huge cement teeth out of the dirt, with some help from the Ford and a nylon tow-rope. Sunday I cleaned up the post-holes and set the new 4x4s (pressure treated this time, not like the cheap-out stuff the builders used) in cement, Sharaun helped hold the posts level while I cemented. And, while we still don’t have a fence at the moment, we’re on our way… sore muscles and all. Seems like I need to get a little bit more done with these muscles, their protests at such a tiny amount of work are fairly embarrassing.

Other than that, we had to cancel Keaton’s birthday party at the kiddie-gym place on Saturday because she’s sick. When I got home from work Friday (a little early, around 4:30pm) she was still down for her nap. The noise of the garage door and me coming in must’ve woke her, and she was babbling by the time I walked by her door. When I went in to get her she was just burning up, the thermometer showed 104°. We stripped her down and put her in a cool bath to try and make her a little more comfortable, and started the regimen of Tylenol she’s still on today. She kept the fever through the weekend, although never as high as that afternoon, and has a nasty cough, a horribly runny nose, and nice gooey eyes. Sharaun, having become quite good at armchair diagnoses, predicts the doctor will call it a double ear infection when she takes her in tomorrow. Poor little thing. Kids get sick a lot, it seems.

Getting right back on the horse-ishly though, Sharaun’s planning a do-over on the party for next Sunday, hopefully she can pull that off. And, we ended up having an OK evening anyway when some friends stopped by with their brood and I got to give the grill its first post-Winter workout (salmon and asparagus). So, despite the canceled party we ended up having an OK day, and since Keaton never really acts sick, even when she is, she appeared to have an OK time too.

Alas, I know, I’ve returned to the standard play-by-play, unable, for now, to get back to the weird-style phase of writing I went through last week. Maybe it was something about Sharaun and Keaton being gone… mind wandering and all… I’ll see what I can do, but only after tonight… because… for now…

I’m done. Goodnight friends and lovers, I love and friend you all.

Posted on

forgive me the fortnight


Hi. Come on in.

Here, go ahead and have a seat. We had a meeting last night, me and the guys upstairs. We were wrestling with a lot of difficult topics, and your name came up. We all decided, unanimously, that you deserve to know what was discussed.

Basically, what we did was an evaluation… a kind of cradle-to-grave retrospective of our entire engagement thus far. No, no, this wasn’t motivated by anything specific, no performance issues or concerns or anything like that – it’s just a practical thing to do to evaluate the health of a project as you go along, so that’s what we did. All the top experts will tell you it’s just something you should do, it’s good business.

So anyway, I hope I haven’t got you sweating or anything… I’ve actually got a really positive message for you. You see, we all agreed last night, sitting around that table, that you are by far the best thing that’s ever happened to the organization. Your skillset meshes with our culture seamlessly, and, even going back to the awkward formative stages of our relationship – your contributions provided positive guidance in shaping our ultimate direction. Not even trying, the board was able to recall several specific instances where your unwavering dedication and support have generated outcomes we would’ve otherwise likely missed in your absence. I’m not going to go into them all here, I mean, you probably remember them as well or better than we did, but I do feel it’s worth mentioning a few just to reiterate to you how much we truly do value what you’ve done for us.

Take for example the way you steered the organization out of the weeds, so to speak, so very early on. I’m sure you’ll recall that, at that point in time, our mission statement and goals as an organization were fairly undefined. In fact, we were pretty much all over the map. Just the notion that you were able to see the underlying nobility in our muddled intentions is impressive, but even more so is the way your simple presence helped untie those knots and focus us on where we wanted to go. You truly did impart your virtue to the firm in those first months and years, and in small part we owe to you the nature of the corporation we’ve become. Your rational urgings and positive influence really raised our stock, focused us less on our then mentality of immediate gratification and profit-taking and more on a business model that’s long-term viable and less personally taxing. Had your oversight not directed us in those days, we might still be off knee-deep in those weeds, searching for a direction or creed to ally with – the best of our intentions lost to our own indecisiveness and greed. It’s this “righting of the ship” we wanted to specifically recognize today as part of this discussion.

And furthermore, we wanted to pointedly call out and give a little praise for the level-headed steadfastness you offered during the whole (now miserably embarrassing) failed “acquisitions phase” we went through. I know we’ve post-mortemed that period to death, but we wanted to again thank you for sticking by us through the growing pains there. In the end, your metered criticisms managed to refocus us on our core business, and you managed to do it without personal compromise, which is impressive. As a relatively junior member of the team, you showed a heck of a lot of foresight maintaining a belief in the long-term prospects of the firm rather than jumping ship. We recognize that must have been a difficult professional decision on your part, and we’re pretty much eternally grateful you decided to continue your contributions. And the board, we’ve long now been vocal about the mistakes we made as we tried to over-posture the scope of the business at that time – we’re just glad it’s all water under the bridge.

Well, I said I wasn’t going to run down your resume here, but I look to be getting off track just a bit on that. You’ll have to forgive me, but I feel like I have to make a couple more points to really communicate the nature of the discussion we had last night – it’s all positive, so it should at least be easy to listen to. And, I know we reviewed some of those previous accomplishments already when you (rightfully) made partner some eight years ago, but it seemed appropriate to at least revisit them quickly today to frame the message. So, again apologies for the long-windedness here, I’ll try and pick up the pace.

Finally, and this is really the bottom line here, is what our talk last night settled on, I want to talk briefly about your latest project. Honestly, candidly, the launch of that project just a couple years ago, and the tremendous amount of fruit it’s been able to bear since, have been the crown jewel in this company’s short history. I know the near year of solid effort you put into getting this thing off the ground was no small task, and the other members of the board certainly agree. What’s more, the dedication you’ve shown to the new businesses you’ve grown since is simply outstanding.

We hope, as a company, we’ve been able to assist you where we can – but we realize that this thing is by and large your doing. Never before have we been able to truly sit back and look on with amazement at such a thriving development, it’s a first in company history. And, quite frankly, we hope to see it happen again. With the skill and determination you’ve shown us in expertly crafting and now shepherding it to continued success of its own, you’ve created a near-organic perpetual-motion snowball of success – and we honestly think you can offer a repeat performance, we have that much faith in your ability. I can’t begin to describe in enough detail how much the addition of that project to this company’s portfolio has changed our entire paradigm for the better. We’re a stronger company, we practically self-generate revenue, and we’ve never been aimed higher.

So, in summary, and I’m hoping you understand that gravity of what we’re trying to get across here – we just wanted to thank you for your time, and let you know we intend to continue to live up to what you deserve as the primary contributor you are. We wouldn’t be what or where we are today without you, it just couldn’t have happened better than it has. From the perspective of the directors, you’ve molded us, helped to define us, and pushed us when we needed pushing. We are sure that, with a continued level of teamwork consistent with our relationship thus far, there’s no place we can’t take this business. Our shareholders deserve the best, and together we know we can continue to impress and deliver.

Thanks for everything you’ve done, and we can’t wait to see what the future holds for the firm. Our deepest respect and gratitude to you.

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they weren’t that far off


Well, it’s 8pm on Wednesday night and I’ll be leaving for the airport in about 30min to retrieve my wife and daughter. At long last, our family reunited. Sharaun’s feeling better, but not 100%. She called from Chicago during her layover, and I heard Keaton in the background playing in a rocking chair. Taking a suggestion from a friend more thoughtful than I, I stopped off after getting a haircut today to pick up a mylar Backyardigans “Happy Birthday’ balloon which I’ll use as a welcome home prop for Keaton at the airport. I didn’t get anything for Sharaun, I hope that’s OK (that’s OK, right blog?). Anyway, I wrote just a tiny bit upon getting home from work today (I split a little early for lack of concentration). Here it is, be warned: I took license.

It’s been a thousand years or more since I bedded the woman under the sun.

I remember it fondly because our communal joy was used as the basis as a new religion, the point-infinity of zero-time in which the people of that world consider consciousness to have begun. As trees thrashed in the soil, our wrestling drove up mountains, broken and shattered peaks looming around us in the midst of our eternal ecstasy. Our fantastic perspiration dotted the firmament with a flood of salty oceans and seas. Living beings sprang forth from the union of our flesh, animals winged and legged sprouting where we brushed, budding from the rich loam of our combined corpus, pushing through that single-skin and living, breathing. The sound of our tryst established the pantheon of world-language, each rumbling low and trilling high adding depth and soul to spoken word, the genesis of communication.

Each coordinated push of our bodies establishing the regular cadence of time, the cradle of eternity, the friction of our motion warming the surface of the world and giving life to all manner of plant and flower. Beauty bloomed around us, tickling our ticklish bits as it pushed through to touch our flesh and bend to the sun of our union. The fluid results of our strained efforts being the Philosopher’s Stone, that golden egg from which all base and divine sprang and will one day return – Aqua Vitae. As breath filled the first lungs ever to breathe, some of those infant-beings glimpsed our culminating love and the imprint of that God-Union was burned red-hot into their consciousness, destined to be collectively passed down and re-interpreted throughout time, understood and misunderstood by the legacy human froth spilled foaming from our joy.

They called it the Big Bang, and they weren’t that far off.

How’s that for blasphemy? Goodnight and happy Lent.

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laundry coup aside


Tuesday night and my wife and daughter are still not home.

Sharaun came down with the dreaded influenza on what was to be her last day in Florida, and she was knocked onto the couch as her parents traded days off work to help take care of baby Keaton. Luckily, her flight was a free voucher-based one, allowing her to essentially infinitely push it back until she’s feeling up to the long solo flight with the baby on her lap. Well, I say infinitely, but in actuality she’ll have to make it home shortly before midnight tomorrow night, when Keaton officially turns two and goes from a free lap-child to a paying passenger.

That’s the other bit of sadness on my part for wife and child not being here as planned: I’ll be missing most of her actual birthday. Not a big deal, but still stinks that I can’t wake up and tell her “happy birthday!” (Guess I could do that Thursday, she’d really never know.)

My head is sleepy-thick right now, I had a tiring day at work and wanted nothing more than to take a quick hour-ish nap before the Democratic debate started. Unfortunately it didn’t work out, and I at best got a few closed-eyed moments while a familiar episode of Andy Griffith played quietly in the background. The only other noise was the whirring of the washing machine, an appliance I had to reacquaint myself with this afternoon, lest I be forced to realize the nightmare of going into work not wearing pants. Honestly, and somewhat shamefully, it’s been a good amount of time since I’ve actually done laundry. Not that it’s all that hard, or difficult to recall in terms of methodology, but it’s just something I’m rusty at – and realizing that made me remember how it used to be living alone. I decided I’m much happier now as a married man.

Not solely for the laundry or anything, but, y’know… whatever…

Although I must admit, as a guy who hardly ever does laundry, I still seem to do it a lot more efficiently than our family’s primary laundry-doer. Heck I did the whole overflowing bin’s worth tonight, and managed to fold and put it away. Maybe I should take over the role? Execute a laundry coup, perhaps, a hostile takeover of that noisy little room. I don’t mind the task at all.

Anyway, folding Keaton’s little socks and shirts and jeans makes me miss her so much. And, laundry coup aside, I these little socks sure do wont for some little feet to fill them up and run around the house with them on… don’t they? She calls it “La-la-lee-la.” Boo!

Oh, and before I go, something interesting: Sharaun says Keaton’s recent st-st-st-stuttering stint has all but disappeared since they’ve been in Florida.

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you can likely guess


Last day of my bachelor weekend. I didn’t clean anything, didn’t lift a finger. I’m not surprised at all. The motivation is weak with this one. I’m sitting here listening to some Steely Dan the iPod deigned to shuffle up, sounds good in the early evening of a lazy Sunday night. Seriously, when I say lazy, I mean lazy.

My entire day’s activities: Woke up, filled up the Ford on the way to church, church, home, put on the iPod and unsuccessfully fight napping for five hours before going over to Melissa’s for a fine meal. It was a shamefully unproductive day, with so much time wasted – I loved it. Sharaun and Keaton get home tomorrow, that is, unless she decides to push their flight back a day because she’s not feeling well – last time I talked to her she was battling a 102° fever. Not fun flying with a baby on your lap in those conditions, I’d think. We’ll see.

Today I figured I’d lead the week with a long-overdue update to my sixty-days-on-penis-pills adventure. I know it’s been a while since my last update (here, for those who’ve already forgotten or are new to the bit), but I just haven’t had the urge to do the all the ruler and GIMP work that’s necessary to make an entry. But, with a weekend home alone to kill and not spending my time doing anything productive, it seemed like a fruitful time. Now then, let’s catch up on what this whole thing is actually about: I’ve been taking the “natural male enhancement” pill Enzyte now for forty-five days.

For the full backstory, read about the original Enzyte idea here, and check out the first and second set of results I’ve already reported).

During this forty-five days many fun and wonderful things have happened in my life. Unsurprisingly, none of those many things has been measurable penile growth. Yeah, that’s right, absolutely nothing has changed… not a single centimeter. Not that I expected much. So, as I’m sure you already expected, here’s this update’s visual-aide graph of my growth. Showing all of nothing.

(Learn how to interpret this chart here.)

And, folks, you now know why I’m not so hot to update the progress every week. I decided a few weeks back that these pills are bunk, and don’t expect a thing in the world out of my last fifteen days. And, if the Enzyte industry tries to offer me another free thirty days… well… maybe I’d take that, you know, fo rth e skae of th bolg.

Goodnight.