Mid-Week Miscellany: The Lady Gaga Edition

I have been a loyal, dedicated, and profitable customer of Amazon.com for years.  Today, however, they hurt me.  Hurt me and left me befuddled and dazed.  And a little angry.  Amazon has worked very hard at recommending items based upon my past browsing and buying habits.  The algorithms their 10,000 monkeys generated for my account have generally been very good at suggesting books, movies, and music for my buying pleasure.

When I opened up Amazon.com today to check the status of an order, I saw, listed under "Inspired by your shopping trends," the following items:
A Canon lens case (okay-good choice)
A flash card (yep-understand that one)
A "How to survive the end of the world" book (a little flummoxed by this one but I did buy "On the Beach," "The Day After," "The Hunt for Red October," "Wargames," "Red Dawn," "Failsafe," and "The Manchurian Candidate" all in one order this winter.  Okay, maybe I'm not so flummoxed by this one; it makes sense in retrospect)
A World War II computer game (hold on while I move this item to my cart)
A Lady Gaga album: Bad Romance: The Remixes (this is the one that angered and befuddled me; as if I would ever...Lady Gaga!)


Speaking of the end of the world, can you believe that a teacher I know and respect believes that the world may end in 2012 and teaches this to his students?  He has a survival bunker with a year's worth of water.  How that will help if the world ends, I don't profess to know.  Of course I know another teacher who taught French by showing French language movies that he had not previewed first.  It is never a good idea to show a movie you haven't carefully watched.  This is especially true of French language movies. 


I am taking sixty juniors to Six Flags next week for seven and a half hours.  I hate rides.  I hate Six Flags.  You can find me on the train or the Monster Mansion.  Pray for me.

Peace
..._

Donuts with Daddys Part III: I Love my Dad because he eats Corn!

It has been my pleasure to go to my childrens' Donuts with Daddies events whenever possible.  I told about two previous events with my eldest here and here.  With four children I have found it difficult to go to each one.  I missed the twins' event recently but I still got to keep a tie and a questionnaire of each of their impressions of me.   They are three and a half.

Matthew:
What is your Dad's name? Daddy
How old is your Dad? 3
What color are Dad's eyes?  Red (me: I must be really scary)
Hair? Orange
How tall is your Dad? This tall [raised his hand]
What is Dad's favorite food?  Chicken
What is your Dad's job? Teacher (me: good job)
Where is Dad's favorite place to go?  work (me: not so much)
What is Dad's favorite TV show?  football (me: he enjoyed watching football with me this fall)
What does Dad do around the house? play, eats (me: sad but accurate)
What is your favorite thing to do with your Dad? Watch a show
I love my Dad because I do!

William:
What is your Dad's name? Mark (me: what?)
How old is your Dad? 8 (me: closer than your brother's guess)
What color are Dad's eyes? Blue (me: well done)
Hair? Black
How tall is your Dad? Bigger
What is Dad's favorite food? apples (me: not so much)
What is your Dad's job? works on computers (me: teaching involves so much mouse work these days that I have to give him credit for this one)
Where is Dad's favorite place to go? stay home (me: I didn't know that he knew me this well)
What is Dad's favorite TV show? movies (me: well done)
What does Dad do around the house? plays with me; watches TV (me: true; I am glad they both said "play")
What is your favorite thing to do with your Dad? eat carrots with him; color (me: carrots?  Carrots!)
I love my Dad because he eats corn! (me: again with the food)

I love those two boys.  I am sorry I missed their day with me, but we are on a strict "don't take any days off because it is re-enrollment (and new contract) season."


I spent a day in the mountains recently.  Here's a photo for your enjoyment.  I may post about the adventure.  I may not.  Check out my photos at my Flickr for more of the same.

Peace
..._

Monday Miscellany: Sufjan Stevens and My Boy turns Nine

I have been hearing about Sufjan Stevens for several years now.  Last summer I finally bought his album Come on and feel the Illinoise.  I wish I had listened years ago.  His writing is beautiful, clever, and original.  I do not think I have ever heard a song more perfect than Casmir Pulaski Day nor more devastating than John Wayne Gacy, Jr.

It has been a long, cold winter.  This song touched me today.  Here are the lyrics from Oh, God Where are you Now?

Oh God hold me now.
Oh Lord hold me now.
There's no other man
who could raise the dead.
So do what you can
to anoint my head.

Oh God, where are you now?
Oh Lord, save somehow.
The Devil is hard on my face again.
The world is a hundred to one again .

Would the righteous still remain?
Would my body stay the same?
Oh God hold me now.
Oh God touch me now.
There's no other man
who could save the dead
There's no other garden
to place our head.

Would the righteous still remain?
Would my body stay the same?

There's no other man
who could raise the dead
So do what you can
to anoint my head,
Oh God hold me now.
Oh Lord touch me now.


My eldest son turned nine this week.  He is amazing, lovely, and more than I ever could have hoped for in an eldest son.  He is smarter than his parents put together.  Pray that we can be the parents that he needs.


A rather maudlin miscellany.  Maybe later I shall tell you about my mini-class on films of the Cold War.  Youngsters really hate black and white these days.

Peace
..._

Monday Miscellany: Turning Forty While Running from the Reaper

40. Forty. XL. The number is biblical in its proportions. Rain for forty days and forty nights. Forty years of wandering the desert. Forty days of fasting. Forty days of lent. Everything seems to last seven or forty days or years. I don’t remember seven. Last month I turned forty. I don't feel I am allowed to play with my son's LEGO bricks anymore. Did you know that wikipedia has an entry for the number "40?"



At lunch one day, I confided in one of respected elders that I had passed this serious milestone. I hoped for some aged sagacity or perhaps a hopeful cliché like, "Life begins at forty." He looked at me and grunted, "Yeah, that's when everything starts falling apart."

In February (I was only 39 at the time) I decided to take up running. My hope was to keep the grim reaper off of my heels for a few more miles. To keep me inspired I began entering 5k races. Knowing that I will be running in a race with dozens, hundreds, or thousands of other runners forces me to get out and run so that I don't embarrass myself. I still embarrass myself. I am continually passed by 78 year-old runners who are barely breathing heavily through their three teeth, pregnant women pushing strollers, and the faster of the toddlers. In my first race I was passed by a seventeen year old girl with only a tenth of a mile left before the finish line. I was breathing like Darth Vader on speed before I finally pulled my body and crushed ego across the finish line.


Most of the races are fund-raisers for local charities. Many of them have fun names. They usually give out T-Shirts, prizes, and medals for winning or placing in your age group. My first race was the Fire Ant 5k in Ashburn, GA. It is part of the big Fire Ant Festival down there. It was a small race, and I finished the race without throwing up, suffering a major coronary event or even seeing a fire ant. I have also run the Athletes Helping Athletes 5k (for greyhound adoption) in Kennesaw, GA, a Run for the World 5k (in Rome, GA), and one down by the Chattahoochee River. After every race my son and daughter ask me if I won. I finally got a 2nd place medal for my age group in the Hog Jog of Vienna, GA. The Hog Jog is the kick off event for the Big Pig Jig. I haven’t told my children that there were only two people in my age group and that the guy who got first finished twelve minutes before I did. They were very proud of me.  One of my students asked if the Hog Jog was for, er, bigger runners. 

I will be running the Gobble Jog on Thanksgiving morning. 

I knew I had truly turned forty the other day when I walked into a Walgreens and bought a box of Preparation H from the cute little girl at the cash register without embarrassment or without trying to disguise it by buying a bunch of other stuff.


Peace
..._

The Builder and the Destroyer

"There are three classes of man.  The first and smallest class is that of the dreamer.  The dreamer lives to inspire the second class.  The second class is that of the builder.  The builder lives to stay one brick ahead of the third and greatest class of man, the destroyer.  The destroyer will not rest until there is no place left to rest."--Tiebos

There were two boys.  Their homes sat opposite each other's in a typical suburban neighborhood.  Both of them were strange and stood out among the typical suburban children.  They found themselves mocked by the other boys of the neighborhood.  In turn, they mocked each other, as they had learned that is how the game was played.  In a moment of divine grace, a day came when enlightenment shone upon them, and they saw that it was their very strangeness that united them.  The two boys became the best of friends.

They spent their days in collecting and building.  They collected rocks, shells, coins, stamps, high scores on the Atari 2600 and Intellivision, cereal boxes, license plates, and any thing else that was collectible (and some things that were not).  But their collecting was, for them, another way of building.  They built cities everywhere and out of anything.  They build a rock city by the mailbox, a Lego City in the basement, a domino city next to the Lego City, a Lincoln Log city in the bedroom, and a dirt city in an embankment. 

The dirt city was built into a six foot, sloping embankment in one of the boy's backyard.  Pine trees swayed above the boys as they used hand spades to carve out roads from the cool red clay for Hot Wheels, and caves for homes, businesses, and fire stations.  Working through dusk, red mosquito welts would rise like constellations on their arms as the first stars tried futilely to replace the fading sunlight.  Sticks served as lampposts, guardrails, and pillars in the spreading metropolis.  One of the boys pilfered a small bucket of concrete mix from a nearby home site to pave his roads and line his caves.  The other refused to use the mix because it was stolen, but secretly coveted the smooth gray streets of his friend. 

One afternoon, they boys returned from school to find two large gashes like the track of twin slashing meteorites had devastated their city.  The sneaker prints at the end of each gash betrayed the man-made disaster that had been wrecked upon them.  Believing the damage to have been accidental, the boys threw themselves into repairing the damage.  Joy welled in their hearts whenever they discovered a beloved spot that, thought destroyed, was actually preserved under the ruins.  Excavations and new road-building had the city running again by dinner time.

The next day the boys found more destructive footprints.  It dawned on the boys that there was no other explanation than the idea that the destruction was purposeful.  The boys were hurt in their hearts and couldn't understand why another would destroy their work.  But they rebuilt the city....

...to find the city destroyed again.  After this, they began hiding their work every evening with pine straw, hoping that this would keep the angel of death from visiting their city. This ruse worked for a few days before, once again, the ravishing feet trampled their town.

In the now mournful silence of rebuilding, one of the boys stood up, red clay sticking to bare knees and proclaimed,
"I'm done."
"You're going home?"
"No, I'm done with dirt city.  I don't want to do it anymore."
"But I love dirt city."
"So do I, but I can't stand that someone keeps coming and destroying it."  It hurts too much, he didn't say.
"What if we built it somewhere else?"
"They would find it.  They would find it and destroy it."
"Oh."
"Its a little kid game."
"No, its not!"
"Let's play video games."

That fall, the pine needles settled over the broken concrete and shattered caves of dirt city and have never again been cleared away.  One of the boys either grew up a little that day, or part of him died.  Probably a little of both.

Peace
..._