According to today’s Writer’s Almanac,
On this day, in 1858 the state of Minnesota was admitted into the Union. It was from Minnesota that we got the stapler, water skis and roller blades, Scotch tape, Bisquick, Bob Dylan, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Spam
Buffy brings the beau home —
Girl brings home suitor. Father tries to frighten suitor. For real or for jest. With harsh words. An intimidating stare.
Pa used arms the size of tree trunks and a highly arched brow. A friend’s dad employed over the counter drug tests. “Here. Pee in the cup.” The old codgers from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers used guns. Lined up the boys and whipped out the rifles.
Mine used dynamite.
T was the first and last guy I ever brought home to meet the family. I was 25. We’d been together for two years and it was his first visit to Appalachia. I should have been shocked by it all. I wasn’t. Not that I expected my father and his pack of dark-eyed brothers to blow up the mountain, close down the only road out and block any chance of escape for a good portion of the day. But I didn’t not expect it either.
Closest to the Heart
When the dust had settled,
He took it in His mighty hand,
and squeezed it close together,
and then breathed life into a man.
He saw that one was not enough,
that man alone was just a part,
so God fashioned woman from a rib,
closest to the heart.That’s why she knows the rhythm,
of the Spirit’s inner work;
her ears hear its direction,
and to its voice she is alert.
Some call it intution,
when she perceives what God imparts,
but she’s only taken her position,
closest to His heart.And now each life beginning,
grows from a tiny seed within,
nurtured by her body,
and all the hope that’s placed therein.
For God chose her to be the one,
to give this gift its start,
and to hold it safe against her breast,
closest to the heart.With Godly counsel and support,
she helps her mate contend,
for by himself he’d be just one,
but she adds the strength of ten.
He’ll love her as he loves himself,
(at least he will if he is smart),
and exalt her second only unto God,
and closest to the heart.And when her days are golden,
and she’s given all that she’s possessed,
many are the ones,
who’ll rise up and call her blessed.
And when she passes through that gate,
into the place that’s just like home,
they’ll clear a path before her,
and she’ll kneel before His throne.
“Arise my precious daughter,
for I’ve loved you from the start;
come now to the place I’ve made for you,
closest to my heart.”– John Stewart
Judging by the title, you might have guessed what has happened. We have a new birdy in the household!
We are keeping the newbie for a few days to see if she (he? It’s only 8 months old, not old enough to tell what gender it is) and Birdy-wirdy are compatible.
The sad part of the story is: my friend (Angelina) called me up and said that another of my friends (Olivia) had a bird that had died, so they were going to give away their remaining bird because it never got any attention, and it had bonded with the late birdy. So my mom called Olivia’s mom, and last night I came home from Tae Kwon Do and walked into the living room. There was a white bird cage sitting next to the cage that Birdy-wirdy was in.
“Oh,” I said. “New bird cage?” I went closer. AACCKK!! An adorable yellow face was looking at me. The new parakeet has bright yellow and green plumage (can you hear my dad in the background saying “Remarkable bird, the Norwegian Blue. Lovely plumage!”) with black on it’s back and tail. Mom said it’s name is Chiquita, and Olivia’s family thought that it was a girl. But I think it might be a boy, because it’s cere (the area above its beak that’s pink for a girl and blue for a boy) has a little bit of blue.
And mom said no more pets!
Ciao for now!
In my life I’ve had maybe five hairstyles. When I was a tyke my father bought some electric hair clippers, but the only style he ever learned was a buzz cut, which was what I had until about first grade (and for a short, traumatic time in 8th grade).
In first grade I made a stylish leap forward — a “regular boy” cut, parted on the left with a slap of Brylcream to make a debonair wave back from my forehead. Eventually I ditched the Brylcream and let the hair fall over my forehead, permitting the classic head-snap, shoulder-shrug move to clear it out of my eyes. By the time I got to college (and out of my father’s sight) I let my hair grow out to about shoulder-length and even tried the part-in-the-middle thing. My hair was naturally wavy and drove the girls mad with jealousy but not much else.
I’d grown out of that by the time I went corporate and was back to the low -maintenance, part-on-the-left, just-over-the-ears-and-collar look. It was pretty much wash-and-wear, with no mousse or gel (or moose-and-squirrel) and definitely no Brylcream. It must have been ok because I was able to induce the not-yet-Reverend Mother to marry me. When I went to get my hair cut on the morning of my wedding day the stylist (perhaps at the behest of my bride) suggested I try something different.
Sure, on the single-most important day of my life, let’s take a flyer — maybe it’ll keep people from paying too much attention to the rented tux. On that day I converted to a no-part, combed straight back and moussed look, and I stuck with that for the next 19 and a half years. It may have even been stylish for a year or two of that period, but it was always neat and tidy and responded well to my comb. My hair was so used to that grooming that even if I skipped a day without the gel it would still go back that way; my wife called it “memory hair.”
Naturally, life with a hair-stylist in the family brings a certain dynamism to the home that means change is inevitable. Last week I sat down in the Mall Diva’s styling chair for a cut and mused that maybe I should try something a little diff- … well that was about all I needed to get out before the she went into a blur of hands, clippers and scissors. Fortunately she knows a few more tricks than my father, but I ended up with short hair on the sides and a little bit longer than that on top. Instead of moussing it straight back however, I was told to put the gel on my finger tips and poke it into my hair, then tousle everything back and forth once or twice, leaving it standing up and pointing in every direction.
Wow. I figured people would think I’d either paid $90 to have my hair professionally zhooshed — or they’d think I’d just gotten out of bed. It’s kind of hip, kind of now…and by the end of the day it’s a little droopy. My daughter says that is because I’m just using styling gel; I need to switch to pomade. Pomade? I could see myself going into the drug store: “I’m a Dapper Dan man, I don’t want Fop, I want Dapper Dan!”
It also feels kind of funny, especially when the breeze blows. When I catch sight of my shadow or my reflection I reflexively reach for my comb to get the strays back in formation before I remember there are supposed to be strays; if I’ve done it right I’m supposed to look like a durian fruit, or Sonic the Hedgehog. I leave my comb in my pocket, though truth be told I could probably just leave it at home.
I’m getting used to it, though, and no one’s said anything to me about it. They probably figure it’s just some mid-life crisis and they don’t want to get involved.
For my wife’s last birthday someone gave her a large coffee-mug printed with a collection of insults from Shakespeare — barbs from the bard, if you will. These colorful jibes are epically epithetical. Some examples:
As I said, the mug was given to her. Yet she serves me my coffee in it. Methinks she’s trying to tell me something.
I’ve been doing a bit of father-daughter bonding lately with Tiger Lilly via one of the Xbox games I received for my birthday: Justice League Heroes. In it mixed duos of superheroes fly and fight their way through a less-bloody version of the Baldur’s Gate II universe (the games were designed by the same people). Though you can play individually, the game works best with a real partner and Tiger Lilly’s just the person you want to take with you into a dark Gotham or Metropolis alley – fast thumbs, sharp eyes and a diabolical “heh, heh” when she unleashes a devastating A-B-A combo on a pitiable robot or para-demon, or — if she’s playing as Zatanna, Mistress of Magic — when she turns them into white rabbits. 
You start out with your basic A-list of superheroes: Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Zatanna, the Martian Manhunter, the Flash and the guy I’m kind of partial to — Green Lantern (who’s secret identity is John Stewart). As you go along you can earn shields (points) that allow you to unlock more characters such as Aquaman, Hawkgirl, and the Huntress. On some levels you get to pick your character from the entire roster, but most of the time the duo is predetermined (to fit the cut-scene segues) and you only get to pick between the two — which means I sometimes get the opportunity to explore my inner Wonder Woman (laugh and I’ll bounce a tiara-boomerang off your head so fast you’ll feel like Jimmy Olson).
Each character has a different set of super powers and it’s fun learning how to best apply them. Superman, for example, has a super-assortment that includes heat vision, freezing breath, a high-speed flying strike and the Super-Punch, which takes a moment to load up but does tremendous damage. Still, he can be a bit of an oaf. On one level where I’m playing as Superman and Tiger Lilly is Wonder Woman, TL takes great delight in letting me fly out to punch a laser-shooting creature…and then using her lasso to snatch the villain right from under my nose (or fist) so she can deliver a knock-out kick. The best part though, in my opinion, is the job the artists and writers did in getting the personalities of the characters into the game. Superman and Batman, for instance, don’t really like each other (well, to tell the truth, Batman doesn’t really like anyone) and trash-talk each other throughout the game and there’s girl-talk between Zatanna and Wonder Woman (Z: “Just between us girls, don’t you ever get cold in that outfit?”).
As in Baldur’s Gate, if you let your characters stand still too long they get antsy and let you know about it in ways generally true to their character. Zatanna, for instance, will say, “Hey! Pay attention to me!” or “Want to see a real magic trick? Pull my finger!” Her friend Wonder Woman will say, “You can tell that a man designed this costume,” or, “If only I could remember where I parked the invisible plane.” Superman, always the Boy Scout, will finally say, “I don’t mean to be pushy, but ‘places to go, people to save,’ you know?” or “Have you ever noticed there always seems to be a lot of kryptonite lying around? Really, what’s up with that?” My favorite, though, is the Batman: “Robin used to make me wait; ever wonder what happened to him?” — or the all-time winner, “What’s the matter, Precious? Your mother kick you out of the basement?”
Besides having fun, I’ve even developed some super-powers of my own. For instance, Tiger Lilly can have her nose buried in a book, or be heading for a cuddle with Mom and all I have to do is interlock my fingers, raise my thumbs and twiddle them and she jumps up and runs at super-speed to the television. Now if I can only get that to work when it comes to mowing the lawn…SHAZAM!
Davin Arul has a great piece today about Spiderman – the superhero most like us and, perhaps, the one we’d most like to be like, doing battle both against evil-doers and our own personal weaknesses. Arul looks at the decisions that make a superhero:
You can’t quit now: Every fibre of your being hurts: from the pain of those broken ribs, to the strain of holding up that collapsing ceiling while flood waters swirl about your waist, rising with each second.
You want to just give in, submit to the blackness that’s hovering at the edge of your vision. But Aunt May will die, because she’ll never receive the medicine that’s in your belt if you give up. And so you resolve not to.
No odds are impossible: The Sinister Six, a collection of your worst enemies, have beaten you down and they’re now set to carry out their diabolical plans. Thousands could die if they aren’t stopped. You’re the only hero present, so it’s all up to you. Individually, they’re tough to handle – let alone all at once.
So you put that genius intellect of yours to work. You prioritise your targets, you formulate a strategy, you determine which enemy’s strength you can turn against him. And then you get to work.
If about to crack … just crack wise: The enemy you face is implacable, and has every desire to do you harm. Reasoning with him hasn’t helped, and you feel little tendrils of panic tickle the back of your brain. So … you let loose a stream of banter and wisecracks, and it keeps your mind off the seriousness of the situation.
Your foe scoffs at first, but then the banter gets under his skin. He starts to get careless, while your resolve grows and you can sense that you’ve won. Levity over gravity, my man.
You think you’ve got problems: Sure, the rent is overdue, Aunt May’s medical bills are piling up, and that tightwad boss of yours is threatening to cut your photo rates. But that family you saved from a fire last week has to live in a community hall for the next six months.
And that elderly guy you grabbed just before a bus hit him – your keen senses picked up the rattle in his breathing that told you he was really sick. But he was genuinely happy to be alive.
Think you’ve got problems, hero? They don’t add up to a hill of beans next to some other folks’ troubles. And if they can cope – then maybe you can, too.
Do the right thing: Even if it means admitting an earlier “thing” was wrong…
…When “moral” and “legal” decided on one of their frequent trial separations, you chose the former, determined to correct your mistakes and honour the sacrifices of your comrades.
With great power: And now we stand at your beginning. Something has changed inside you. Where you were once weak and reticent, you’re suddenly brimming with vigour and confidence.
You’re standing on a ledge, considering your future. It really isn’t that far to the next rooftop, but it seems like a mile away. Just one step back and you’ll be on familiar ground again, on firm footing, and life will go on as it always has.
One step forward, one leap of faith, and everything changes forever. Your life will never be the same, and neither will the lives of those dear to you. Yes, change can be disruptive, but it isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
You hesitate because you are, after all, only human. You’re standing on a ledge, considering your future.
And just like that, you go for it.
Great stuff. Of course, that all just applies to superheroes and comic books, right? Go read the whole thing.
spider man can' to Del.icio.us" alt="Add 'Whatever a spider man can' to digg" alt="Add 'Whatever a spider man can' to reddit" alt="Add 'Whatever a spider man can' to Stumble Upon" alt="Add 'Whatever a spider man can' to Google Bookmarks" alt="Add 'Whatever a spider man can' to Ask" alt="Add 'Whatever a spider man can' to FaceBook" alt="Add 'Whatever a spider man can' to Barrapunto" alt="Add 'Whatever a spider man can' to MySpace" alt="Add 'Whatever a spider man can' to Twitter" alt="Add 'Whatever a spider man can' to Social Bookmarking Reloaded" alt="Add 'Whatever a I’ve noticed something unusual in my blog traffic the last month or so: I’ve been getting a lot of http://images.google.com referrals. Unlike the Google-search links I used to get where certain word-searches brought readers, these are driven by photos.
Ok, I’ve posted quite a few photos here in the last 2+ years, so that image searches shouldn’t be too unusual — except there appears to be a certain pattern to the images being viewed: they’re either people who want to view the “Loch Ness Monster Truck” evidence photo from last May…or people who want to see a picture of the Mall Diva in a prom dress.
It’s hard to keep a thorough list since my Sitemeter account only registers the last 100 visits, but as of 15 minutes ago 77 of the last 100 visitors to this blog had come from image searches; 18 of these were Loch Ness Monster Truck driven and 16 were led to see a photo of the Diva and her cousin in their formal gowns. Another half-dozen or so wanted to see the photo of the bruise on MD’s knee from last fall’s Paintball outing. That’s actually a significant decrease for that particular photo; one month recently my Powerblogs tracking tool showed more than 800 referrals to that image from a website in Taiwan!
Are there not enough lovely things to look at on the internet that people have to come looking for an oversized tire in a loch, a couple of well-dressed girls or a close-up of a naked, discolored knee? Are there that many fetishists out there living in their mom’s garage, surfing the internet so they can ogle and drool over a photo: “Ooooh, it’s a B.F. Goodrich!”
I know I should be glad for the traffic, but frankly it’s beginning to creep me out.
I just read an article about a study that shows religion is good for kids:
“John Bartkowski, a Mississippi State University sociologist, and his colleagues asked parents and teachers of more than 16,000 kids, most of them first-graders, to rate how much self-control they believed the kids had, how often they exhibited poor or unhappy behavior and how well they respected and worked with their peers.”
I stopped reading after a couple of paragraphs just to throw in my un-biased 2 cents worth of pre-conceived notions. First of all, I think that the word “religion” is sort of a cop-out for people who don’t feel that they need The Relationship. Religion is just the kind of nicey-nice safe sounding generalization that one can throw into a conversation to make themselves feel like a good person while sneakily getting away with not really beieving in anything. It’s also kind of similar to how people use the word “spiritual” or “spirituality”. Sure, one can claim an experience as “religious” or “spiritual” and then write it off, thinking that they’ve done their duty or filled their goodness quota; but if it never reached their heart or renewed their mind or made them strive after reconciliation with the One who gave them life- what is it good for? That’s right- absolutely nothing. Onward…
“The researchers compared these scores to how frequently the children’s parents said they attended worship services, talked about religion with their child and argued about religion in the home. The kids whose parents regualarly attended religious services — especially when both parents did so frequently — and talked with their kids about religion were rated by both parents and teachers as having better self-control, social skills and approaches to learning than kids with non-religious parents.”
I think it comes down to faith. The “religious” parents believe in something, and put that faith into action by going to church with their families (and hopefully not just attending, but actually getting involved somehow) and also discussing what it is that they’re learning, and how it applies to their lives.
These parents realize that there is something bigger than themselves in this world, that they are not the be all and end all, that they are being held responsible for their actions, and that they had better live accordingly. If this is indeed what they believe, than a big part of the actions they are responsible for are their children. In the case of my own parents with me and my sister, they are responsible to “raise us up in the way we should go…”, ultimately teaching us that there is Someone bigger than us, that we are not our own, that we are on this earth for a purpose (not our own purposes), and that we, too, are being held responsible for our actions. We are ultimately here to glorify the Lord, not ourselves. It might not sound appealing, but I have seen examples of both, and I know Who I would rather glorify.
Are the non-religious parents giving their kids anything to live for — besides themselves? I’m not saying they don’t want what’s best for their kids, but what do they really have that they can give them? Money can’t buy love or salvation. Maybe they let their kids do anything they want. Sure, it sounds like more fun — and it probably is; but only for a little while. There is nothing fulfilling or satisfying about living for yourself. I know that lots of people trick themselves into thinking there is, while turning a blind eye to the wretched emptiness of their own soul.
At this point you might be wondering what this has to do with the study at all. Actually, it’s everything. What I believe in has an effect on every single thing in my life, from my attitude and my friends to my grades and habits. I am definitely not perfect in any way, shape or form; but why try for something impossible? I would rather strive for excellence — which I know is attainable — in my job, in school, and in my life.