Highways of Communication

Last night I dreamed that Adam was a bridge engineer. Will someone please analyze this stuff? Seriously.

Life has gotten crazy. For those who didn't know, I picked up a part time job at the downtown Barnes & Noble (hello, discount!), and I've been rehearsing a show with a youth group in St Louis Park. Adam has been valiantly picking up the household pieces and keeping the dog appeased. His life just got much happier, though, and we'll get pix up as soon as we can.

The upshot is, there's not a lot of blogging going on, and not even a lot of emailing, so if you're feeling neglected, you should call me and put yourself on our calendar for some time in mid-November or early December. We love you, we really do.

smochs

I had a dream about you, too! I dreamed that you came back from Korea for a visit, and you surprised me at a restaurant or a bar or someplace. I was all excited and I asked you how long you were going to stay and you said, "Adriano wants to leave tomorrow night to go back to Korea." I said, "So, can I hang out with you tomorrow morning?" You said, "No, I'm acting for the performing arts section of the SAT."

What?

So, I got really angry and I went over to Marc and Becky's house (which was not their actual house, of course, it was some huge rambling one level house with a big greenhouse/sauna combination) and I was telling Marc how awful it was that you were leaving again, but he had some kind of weird facial muscle disease and all he wanted me to do was make coffee for him. But this is Marc, right, so he had this crazy technological coffee maker and I couldn't figure out how to make it work, and I got more and more angry, so I left without making him coffee. (Sorry, dude!)

Then I woke up. Seriously, what?

Minus 50 thousand words.

Don't worry, the pictures will be back.

Eventually.

I deleted some off of Flickr to make room for others, completely forgetting that it would delete the links here. Argh.

House Update!

Do you know, once this dining room adventure is done, I don't know what I'm going to blog about anymore. Hrm.

Well, no worries about that yet, because projects just keep rolling right along! Adam has sanded, conditioned, sanded, and stained the wood trim. He doing a little bit of repair in one corner, and then he'll be on to the polyurethane sealant. As you can see below, the stain made a huge difference in how the wood looks. Instead of looking obviously old and mistreated by whatever fool painted it the first time, it looks obviously old but still lovely and warm.

I finished painting the dining room picture rails and have started painting the upstairs hallway picture rails. I actually got to hang the first picture up today. Yay, art!

And, just in case you were worried about "all work and no play," here's a picture of Sherwing singing karaoke last Wednesday!

Fetterman Schmalkaldic

Joshua, I had a dream about you! You were the youngest of five kids, four boys with a girl in the middle, but you'd only been raised with three of them because your twin brother was abducted in infancy. Thirty years later, he's finally found your family, and you're all set to meet for the first time.

So, I'm sitting there with you and your family around a display of patio furniture at Home Depot, and your twin walks in with a couple of other guys, and I turn to you and say (about your twin):

He's here! Look, he's the shorter one.

Because maybe you wouldn't recognize him? Yeah, in case you were wondering, I'm still a dork.

Morning view of downtown

This is a view of the Wells Fargo Center (where I work) reflected in the IDS Center across the street. I was standing in the skyway between Gaviidae Common and the City Center.

Yeah, not so much anymore.

Hey, Smochs, remember how you bought that dog toy for Arrow and it was really squeaky?

Hey, Marc, remember when I said this place was for sale and you should buy it and open Coffee and Bacon?

Already?

It seems like yesterday that I told Adam we were getting married. But here we are at our second wedding anniversary already. Two years ago today, my dad was eating four pieces of our wedding cake and my in-laws and cousins were making friends with Japanese dairy businessmen.

I feel blessed to have had two wonderful years of marriage, and I hope we have many more to come!

Of Man and Dog

It's that time again, time for

Adam's Birthday Masquerade!

When: Saturday October 21st at 8pm

Costume Judging and Prizes at 10pm

Where: Thorne House

(PS: This link works now!)

Adam is turning 32 this year, on October 25th.

Arrow is turning 1 year old on October 20th.

Our dining room will be redecorated (or by God, someone will pay).

Come celebrate with us!

As usual, BYOB. Snacks provided.

Presents are not required, but if anyone is so moved, Adam would appreciate gift certificates to either Barnes & Noble or Home Depot.

Hope to see you all here!

I don't work for them anymore

The Ameriprise Financial Ivey's Awards were Monday night. They're local live theatre awards that are completely based on audience feedback. You can volunteer to be an evaluator, or you can give feedback through the Ivey website. I think that it's really nice to see a community that wants to tell it's theatre artists that they are appreciated. Sometimes it's easy to feel that theatre in America is on the endangered species list, along with dance, music, the visual arts, libraries, and anything else that isn't highschool football. Some of the theatre folks in the Twin Cities were a little leary of an award sponsored by a financial services firm, but when I think of all of the other worthy causes toward which they could have put their money, I think it's the height of unprofessionalism not to be appreciative. My mama always said, "If someone gives you a compliment, smile and say thank you."

Here are pictures from Adia Morris, because I was too much a space case to bring my camera. That's what happens when I remember the cute little dressy handbag--I forget what I want to take with me.

Hi and Goodbye

Just a flying little update post to say that we are back from vacation in the UP, and that I'm going to the Ivey's tonight, and I'll tell you more about both of those things later, and fill you in on all of the new kitchen furniture goodness, and brag about myself, and there will be pictures and links and more run-on sentence and dangling participle fun than you can shake a mixed metaphor at.

I love the Internet

I found this hilarious post on Craigslist:

"To the person who put half a piece of toast on my car this morning:
Why?
Now what would possess a person to discard a perfectly good piece of toast?
I agree with your choice of morning nourishment, but why not finish it?
Were you trying to share the deliciousness of the freshly baked bread?
Or were you merely showing off your excellent bread toasting skills?
I'm sure you noticed the garbage can that was a mere 20 ft from my parked car, but no- your toast had a purpose.
I thank you for the kind gesture, but as it was half-eaten I did not partake in the digesting of it.
Now I know you didn't carelessly toss the toast aside and it just happened to fall on my car, because it was so carefully (dare I say lovingly?) placed under my wiper blade. Butter side up.
Maybe I am missing something. Is there some sort of age-old tradition of distributing buttered toast as a symbol of affection, courtship, impending doom? If so I hope it's not the latter.
As I was unsure of who you might be generous-toast-weilding-man, I didn't want to physically come in contact with your little gift you left me. It took me almost 5 minutes to find a stick and poke it out from under my wiper and push it too the ground- my squirrel friends that live around the building thank you I'm sure. My boss does not , as I was late for work.
Thank you for the kind start to my morning, however tomorrow I would rather like a cup of coffee and a 3-egg omelette (extra cheese mind you) to go with it."

Which supports my theory that we are much funnier in print than we are live.

So that's why I don't like Tom Jones!

Here's my new favorite example of free speech. This made me laugh way too hard. In other news, happy 2nd Anniversary to Marc and Becky Chapman!!

Intergalactic academic says Martians and aboriginal earthlings mated to create Asian race
By Maggie Grainger
September 4, 2006

San Diego--Pluto may have been officially demoted as a planet, but that doesn’t seem to have the rest of the galaxy in a tizzy.

Yep, that’s right, we’re not alone in the universe – or at least that’s what the students and teachers at the Unarius Academy of Science in El Cajon want the world to know.

Professor and web master David Reynolds says Pluto was never recognized as a planet in the intergalactic council anyways and that we should be focusing our energy on the aliens closer to home.

Aliens are among us – Martians to be exact – and they are roaming the earth right now -- although you wouldn’t necessarily be able to spot one because, well, because they’re Asian.

Yep, you read right. Asians are Martians or vice versa.

According to Reynolds, the Asian race is a result of Martian and aboriginal Earthlings interbreeding more than half a million years ago.

Reynolds says the Martians came to Earth long ago with the intent to colonize and relocate from their home on Mars, but were confronted by the angry aboriginal earthlings in the Gobi desert before they could stake their claim.

The earthlings were too much for the Martians to handle and, although they had more advanced ray guns, the Martians ended up surrendering because they don’t believe in war.

“They knew if they (the Martians) shot, it would set back their own spiritual plan,” Reynolds explained.

Eventually the Martians and Aboriginals started getting busy together and over the years the offspring turned into today’s vast Asian population.

Reynolds says pure blood Martians are still on Mars waiting for the right time to make themselves known to the human race.

“They don’t want us snooping around,” he said. “They’ve camouflaged the openings on the surface because they don’t want to be bothered.”

Instead, they are hard at work advancing their own race and have tried to make contact with Earthlings for centuries now but are afraid of getting shot once they enter the Earth’s atmosphere.

Reynolds says the government knows that the Martians have been trying to make contact but want to keep it a secret because it would “cause people to not have a spiritual foundation” and throw everything into chaos.

Martians aren’t the only ones trying to make contact, there are more than 30 other planets composed of “aliens that look like you and me” in the “Confederation” that want to make contact but are too advanced for the human race to understand.

Instead, they are waiting for us to catch up both technologically and spiritually before they make their presence known to everyone.

“Right now we are too hostile a race,” Reynolds points out. “We need to be open to our ‘space brothers’ who know we are going through a painful transition right now.”
--------------------
Maggie Grainger is a Vyuz staff writer.

Happy Labor Day

It was a beautiful day in the labor-hood. We spent the weekend shopping at Home Depot, putting up picture rails, and hanging out with friends. It was rainy Saturday and Sunday, but lovely on Monday, as you can see above. Pictures of hanging picture rails are here on Flickr. Thorne Gallery, coming soon!

Throwing In With The Laws of God and Man

Today's title brought to you by Dinosaur Comics.

I got a call on Tuesday from a volunteer for the Keith Ellison campaign, asking me if I was going to vote for Ellison. I said, No, I'm going to vote for Ember Reichgott Junge. He said, "Okay, thanks," and hung up.

I don't get it. No attempt to change my mind? No pitch about Ellison being a better candidate? No quiz about why I'm going to vote for Junge? What?

Which brings me to the real question, whatever happened to polite debate? When did we develop this inability to change each other's minds through asking questions or sharing information? When did we come to the conclusion that if someone doesn't think like us, we shouldn't spend time trying to understand each other's point of view? I don't get that, either.

Monday, monday

This made me laugh, because I can absolutely sympathize with both kid and mother. It's from mimi smartypants:
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"4. Nora is getting really particular about what she wears. Dresses are RIGHT OUT, as is anything with "curlies," which she defines as the slightest hint of a gather, or a ruffle, or that lettuce edging that little girls' turtlenecks have, or even sometimes puffed cap sleeves on t-shirts. For the most part, I let her wear what she wants and try to shop accordingly, but occasionally I will pull out one of the adorable barely-worn sundresses and try to get her to put it on. The "but a dress is so much cooler!" argument sometimes works, since my girl has a horror of being hot, but not always. A few weeks ago I tried to appeal to her inner jock by postulating that the sleeveless cotton tank dress was really a "basketball dress." And yes, the whole time I was jiving and conniving I knew how ridiculous I sounded. But I wanted her to wear it at least once before the season was over, and it worked.
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For a while. The whole rest of that morning, Nora acted like a total shithead. She whined and acted up and backtalked and was hyperemotional and I have never seen such bad behavior from her, ever. I was trying to get ready for our outing and doing eight million things and it just kept getting worse and worse, so finally I said, "Nora, what is WRONG with you?"
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That's when she started crying hysterically, hiccupping and sobbing, "I DON’T WANT TO WEAR A DRESS!"
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Well JESUS, you don't have to! Go ahead, take it off! Particularly if it means you will act like a human again! I knew Nora had no love for dresses and skirts but I did not know that wearing one for a few hours would color her ENTIRE WORLDVIEW. The dress-hate runs deep, apparently, and I won't ever try to pull one over on her again.
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---mimi smartypants eateth not the bread of idleness but makes no promises about the cupcake of idleness. "
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We spent the weekend finally making progress on house projects. After last weekend's disjointed spasms of usefulness, I really wanted to get a lot done this weekend. It mostly worked.
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On Saturday, Adam and I were at the MN State Fair. We spent some time at the Wells Fargo stagecoach, handing people in and out and rocking the coach for them. Then we walked around the Horse Barn and the Cattle Barn before fleeing the mass of fair-going humanity. Jen and Becky and I hit the MOA for lunch and new boots for them. I didn't even buy a book--I'm so good! That afternoon was given over to more Malibu repair contemplations, since the coolent system continues to be schizophrenic. Adam and Jesse and Chris thought they might replace some gaskets, but Adam decided that we should get mechanic's quotes first. I thought that was a wise choice. We'll see if I still think so after calling a few shops.
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Sunday morning meant a lovely dim sum brunch with the usual suspects plus the entertaining Mr Postle. Afterwards, Adam was good enough to put off having a nap, and instead we did some paint stripping on the big window. He also cut the lawn and swept the house, while I did laundry and other housecleany things. I helped Jen move some bookcases in her house, since she can't carry anything yet. We commiserated about having, "Oh, just put it there," piles left over from moving in. Don't worry--those are on the project list, too.
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Hopefully this week, we will buy the picture rails and paint them. I would love to get them up next weekend. Then we only have a little more stripping before we can seal the woodwork. We've decided to keep it pretty rough-looking, and just put a clear coat over it, the better to clean it when the children have food fights.

The Laziest Post Ever

The pictures from our recent trip to Grand Cayman are up on Flickr. Some explanation:

1. The resort is still under construction, rebuiding from Hurrican Ivan in 2002.
2. All of these pictures were taken on the last three days that we were on the island.

Enjoy!

Accomplishments and Activities

Things I've done recently:

1) Fixed the car. With the help of Chris Smith the Chevy Malibu was diagnosed as having a bad alternator, and said alternator was replaced. I'm fairly impressed with the with this, but there isn't much to say about it. Next time I have to put a serpentine belt back on, however, I think I'll put it over the toothy gear and then try to slide it onto the smooth gear, instead of the other way around.

B) Go Tournament. There was a Go tournament a while back, and I went. It was the Minnjin tournament (a play on an existing Japanese tournament for the title of Meijin), and it was sponsored by the Japan-America Society of Minnesota, or somesuch. They asked me what strength I was and I said "I have no idea." They rather arbitrarily put me down as 16 Kyu (AGA scale). There were maybe 15 or 20 people there. My record went like this:

• Game 1 - Reggie 14 Kyu (Black) vs. Adam 16 Kyu (White), No Handicap - I won this one on time due to Reggie not understanding the Ing game clock. We played it out anyway, and Reggie took me: Black 65, White 57.5 (with a 6.5 point Komi). Who knows how it would have turned out if Reggie had had to hurry some of his critical decisions a bit more?
  

• Game 2 - Sam 25 Kyu (Black) vs. Adam 16 Kyu (White), 9 Stone Handicap - Sam was just a beginner, but he had a good sense for grabbing territory and not getting stuck in loosing battles. It looked pretty close until we factored in his prisoners. Final score Black: 52, White 81 (no komi).

• Game 3 - Xing 25 Kyu (Black) vs. Adam 16 Kyu (White), 9 Stone Handicap - Xing was also still a beginner, but he had a much greater willingness to jump in and fight against me. Unfortunately for him, this led to his slaughter. We didn't bother to count the score.

• Side Game - One of the guys who looked like part of the regular crowd challenged me to a side game. I forget his name, I think it started with a 'B'. He said he was playing as a 5K that day, and that I could take however many stones I felt were necessary as a handicap. 16k - 5k = 11 stones, but 11 stones sounded like a whole lot. I opted for 7, and was able to force a resignation from him. He said he thought 4 stones would result in a better game.

I went in not knowing my strength. I feel like I played about on par with Reggie who was a 14k. This made me pretty happy, as I was hoping that I'd come in 15-20 kyu. If someone were to ask, I think I'd tell them that I'm about a 15k. But I beat that 5k pretty handily. If I take him at his word that I should have 4 stones from him that would suggest that I would be 5kyu + 4 stones = 9kyu. I don't think I'd buy that I'm down into the single digits, but I am glad to have played well against him. =)

I was happy to have established my strength, and I had a couple of good games, but I felt like the tournament was unfortunately bad. For one thing, I only got one official game against a similarly ranked player. The 25k's I played were nice people, but on the goban I just pushed them around. Oh well, I guess there weren't enough people in the 15+ kyu range to really flesh out the lower ranks. Also James Kerwin, a local Pro, was supposed to show up and do an analysis of the top games. But James called in sick. These things happen, but since I paid $10 to take part I was expecting a little something. It's not like there were any prizes or anything, no final standing was announced. Basically I just showed up and played the 3 players closest to my own strength. The best local players did some analysis on some games (BTW, having the 2 players give commentary on the game they actually played is comedy gold, especially if one of them is really cocky), but basically that was the regular group commenting on the regular group, mostly for the benefit of the regular group. It was a 1dan/3dan game, a 1dan/1dan game, and like a 4kyu/5kyu game. It would have been nice to see dan level, 5-10 kyu, and then 15+ kyu games, just to broaden the appeal.

I had fun none-the-less. I hope to make it to one of the local Go club gatherings that the 5k mentioned to me, and maybe see some of those people there.

iv) Fixed the Garbage Disposal. I have carved another notch on the psycho-fix-it-guy toolbelt. While it is true that I was the source of the fishtank gravel entering the garbage disposal, I don't think that diminishes the fact that I have fixed it. Anyway I now have a good knowledge of how to remove the disposal from underneath my sink and unjam / disassemble / backflush it.

There is also the matter of our recent vacation, but we'll get a picture post up about that soon enough.

Where am I going, and why am I in this handbasket?

So, we're back from vacation, which was very nice. More about that later, once the pictures get organized.

Just a note now to let you know that I've added the Google Calendar button under Links (over there--->) so that you can see our schedule, if you want to. Those of you who have Gmail should be able to see the calendar no problem, since you already have one of your own automatically. Otherwise, it's a sign up dealio, which is obviously completely up to you. If you prefer, you can simply click on the first link, and that will give you just the current month.

So now you know when we're available to be entertained by you. So get right on that, people.

And then there were none....

So, we'll be on vacation until the 14th. We'll be in lower MI for a wedding this weekend, and then in Grand Cayman for a week with Mom and Dad Thorne. So don't bother complaining about no new posts, 'cause we won't care. We'll be at the pool bar.

Au revior!