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!

Picture Post

Here are some photos from just before and during my trip to CA. I went out to visit all of the Wells Fargo History Museums in CA, which took four days and was a ton of fun. It was nice to meet folks that I work with, who I've only spoken to on the phone. These are the non-work related pix. For pix of each museum, go here. Next up in the catch-up posting: Cars Were Invented By Satan.

Here are some views from the WF tower in LA (I don't know what parts of town we're looking at), as well as a super cool sulpture in their courtyard:

Here's a weirdly dark picture of Amanda and I, and a better pic of Tabetha (who is platinum blonde as of yesterday):

Here is a view of San Francisco's Chinatown, as well as the "silver" ware I was given at the SFO airport. If the DHS would hurry up and do its job, we could all eat lunch easier.

Here is the one work-related photo that I'm posting from my trip. This is an example of the scales that WF agents would use to weigh gold dust from the 49ers in the gold fields. These scales are so accurate that you can make a pencil X on a sheet of paper, and weigh the difference between that and another unmarked sheet.

Forza Motorsport Challenge II

Alright. So I figured I should make a post 'cause it's been about a million years since I've done so. So I'm putting this blog to good use by posting a little contest. I don't know how many of you know this, but I like to play video games. One of the video game genres that I enjoy is Driving Games. The driving game of choice at the moment is Forza Motorsport on my Xbox. Now another bit of trivia that not all of you may know is that a number of my irresponsible male type friends also enjoy playing video games on their Xboxes. And so I am here to issue challenges to get these people driving in Forza and posting times. Anyone who can log some time on Forza is welcome to participate.

Forza Motorsport Challenge I has concluded. Not that you shouldn't post a time in comments, but I'm moving on to the next challenge. The old challenge was any class D car on Maple Valley (the 2.98 mi track, not the shorter one), in 'hot lap' mode. No mods on the car, and after the first lap you'll have a running start. Results came up like this:

• Matt - 1:48.361 in the Peugeot 206 Gti 180
• Chris - ~2:02 in I don't remember what car
• Jesse - 1:49 in the Audi TT
• Marc - 1:50.746 in the Peugeot 206
• Adam - 1:46.278 in the Peugeot 206

To be fair, Chris doesn't actually own an Xbox, and made his time screwing around at my house one evening. I was suprised that the Peugeot did so well, my time on it was way better than in the 2 or 3 other likely cars I tried in Class C. Thanks for participating, guys.

Now that that's out of the way here's Forza Motorsport Challenge II:

Lancer EVO vs. WRX STi
In the comments post a time for both the Class C 2004 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VIII GSR and the Class C 2004 Subaru Impreza WRX STi on the Blue Mountains Raceway II track. Also, discuss which you prefer in tha game.

Challenges I and II have been 'hot lap' and no mods on the car for the sake of those who haven't progressed super far through the game yet, and might not have the game money to be buying and hotroding cars. Eventually I want to have a 'tune this car the best' type contest, so let me know how your in-game bank account is lookin, 'k?

Right about now my wife is thinking 'this is what I get for encouraging him to post on the blog.' =D

Of People and Puppies

Adam and I, last night.



Adam and Annie and I, last weekend.

Marc and Becky, last night.


He likes to steal the seat that I've just gotten up from.


He sleeps like this voluntarily.

Pondering Particles

The stuff coming out of my lungs when I cough is gross.

Not as gross as eating two pounds of bacon. It's funnier when it's not yours.

Overheard on the bus to work:
"I think people date whoever they want to.... People see us and they think, we're both Mexican, we must be dating."
"Like you have this instant connection."

Overheard at Caribou:
"You can have a bad attitude and still do good work." (<--Thank goodness; because I hate to change.)

Party Pooper

I have had a cold. In the middle of the summer. Ugh.
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My colds tend to ricochet around my body, changing their point of attach each day that I am sick. The first day, my throat is swollen and terribly sore. The next day, my sinuses clog up, and the throbbing begins behind my eyes. The third day, I have a cough and an all-day series of fevers. It's a rich tapastry
of fun.
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Today I feel much better, and I am back at work. I have managed to stay awake all day so far. My boss bought us all chocolate, and then pointed out that for the Aquatennial, the Crowne Plaza has $2 vodka lemonades. You know, to make my recovery complete.

Party Pictures*

Here's a few pictures from the 2nd Annual Thorne House 4th of July Party. Note to self: take more pictures at parties!

Adam's excited to be a part of this plan:


The game of bocce (which was preceded by a game of croquet):

The crowd of us right before we walked up to the park:

Chris Smith, Jen Cuff and Jacqueline Cuff, in ascending order:

*How many posts do you think I can start with alliterative P's?

Painting Progress

We made visible progress on the dining room this weekend. It's very exciting to think that we'll be able to have our dining room back again soon! On Saturday, we went to buy our paints and primers and implements. Then we sealed ourselves into the dining room and sanded down all four walls. We had spackled over many holes and cracks, so we sanded to reduce the texture of the walls. 97 year old plaster walls have enough personality already, without us adding to it!

Here you can see the two colors of primers that we're using. Since the room was wallpapered, we had to use oil based primers, and if I never do that again, it'll be fine with me. (Never mind that whole living room waiting for us....) I still have paint on my legs, but at least my hands aren't gray any more. That light primer is actually very close to what the final color will be on the East, North and West walls.

We painted the primer on Sunday, and then to celebrate Adam went to Willow River St Park with Chris and Jesse. He came home with a lovely head wound from climbing behind the waterfall. He had Monday off, and I came home at 2pm, but instead of doing more painting, he had a violent allergy attack. I did laundry while he popped antihistamines, and then we indulged in late night Ceasar salads at Figlio. Poor guy had to have something good happen to him!

So, it was Tuesday morning before we managed to put two coats of the red up on the South wall. We wanted to be able to brag to all of our party guests that afternoon, and we did get a lot of complements. It was also nice to be able to show exactly why our house is a terrible mess. Good thing the party was outside! Stay tuned for party pictures tomorrow!

We need more sleep.

"You love me for who I am, for my personality."
"I love you for who you am--"
"Not just because I solve your problems."

"You are simultaneously the cause and solution of all my problems."

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"That's not romantic."

"Philosophical stuff is romantic."

"Philo-sophy isn't ro-mance. Telling me about Socrates's cave isn't going to make me hot."

"Socrates is stupid. There's no cave here, we're not in a cave. He knew shit."

"You know shit."

"Hey, I read books. Books that say things. Things that are right. Then I say those things, and that makes me right."

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Love in the Time of I Don't Want to Talk to You

Adam and I spatted on Friday, sparring to win the title of Most Selfish Spouse. Adam won comprehensively in the Social Calendar round, but I took many points in the Silent Treatment and Revenge Shopping rounds. And then we weeded and drank some beer and looked at Jen's and Chris's vacation pictures, and all was well.

Weeding, like every other house project, has it's own set of tools/props/stuff. The Revenge Shopping happened at Home Depot, where I picked up a grass shears and a new sprinkler. (How very exciting!) It's amazing, though, the difference that an hour's weeding in a flower bed can make. I did the bed in the front of the house, and partway down the front walk, while Adam chased Creeping Charlie in the backyard. After Adam cut the grass Sunday morning, we went around with the weed whacker and finally trimmed up the fenceline along the South side of the yard. The grass had happily grown up into the fence, which is okay if you're going for that Little House on the Prairie look, which we're not. Adam also trimmed up around the verbenas along the curb walk, using the new grass sheers, which resulted in 6 plants looking nice and 1 plant chopped in half. Oops.

It's finally been raining usefully, a lovely slow soaking instead of a harsh downpour, so that's been helping everything in the yard. I've been putting some used coffee grounds by the new hostas, and watered almost everything else with some MiracleGro. We're getting the first ripe raspberries, which we picked last night as our super-fresh dessert. Joanne and John Jongsma were over grilling out and hoping our dogs would get along (which they kind of did), and after dinner we all ate a handful of raspberries straight off the bush. A few more hours of weeding, and we'll be ready to relax on the outdoor chores for a little while. Just in time to start the final push on the dining room!

Getting Schooled

Here are the two tricks that Arrow knows, and the two that we've just started working on.

SIT:

DOWN:

And I can't remember if this was supposed to be UP, or was a failed attempt at BEG:

Keeping up Northern Relations

Adam and I took Arrow up to the Chapman's place outside Wahkon. Their house is right on Lake Mille Lacs, and we were treated to a lovely sunset over the lake on Saturday night. Marc grilled some fantastic ribs, and Becky made us yummy wild rice, which had been gathered and dried in the Indian tradition. There was lots of World Cup Soccer, eating, and good conversation.

Arrow normally doesn't appreciate the car very much, so we gave him a couple of Benedryl, and then he slept the whole way and didn't pull his usual trick of foaming at the mouth and puking. We'll have a couple of other trips this year, so we're happy to find something that keeps him relaxed in the car. And before you all call the ASPCA, the Benedryl was recommended by our vet!

Urban Jungle

Catching up a bit on yardwork this weekend, and took some pictures to let you see what's been going on outside the house. Oh, and let me explain the change to the Comments section. You can still post a comment, you just have to do a little word verification dealio.

Arrow, on the steps next to the bush that he tried to dig up:


What the raspberry patch looked like before I started digging things up:

The rhubarb tree (one of six) that I dug out of the raspberry patch. That's right, all you people who keep telling me how much you love rhubarb, I dug it up. If you had come over and picked it like you said you would, it wouldn't have come to this, but now it's too late. Bye bye, Rhubarb Trees! (And yes, that is my 5' tall shovel standing next to it!)

Remember when I bought that flat of verbenas? Most of them ended up here, on the North side of the backyard, in front of the peonies. Only two of them look like they're not going to thrive, so those might get replaced in the fall by verbenas from the flowerpots.

The Flowerpot Tree:

The rest of the verbenas ended up here, on either side of the front walk:

And finally, the poor trampled hostas, with the perpetrator in the foreground!

PS: Sara, your pothos plant is doing fine!

Time to do a picture page...

Okay, here is the massive catch up on our latest pictures. I'm breaking them up, instead of posting 500 pictures in one post, so keep scrolling down, especially if you haven't checked in lately (as if you have anything better to do!).

Arrow on the front porch. You can see that he's wearing his red walking harness. It's designed to keep your dog from pulling too much on the leash when you're taking a walk. It actually helps quite a bit, but we've also stopped walking so much and started going to the dog park where he can run around with the other dogs off leash.

Adam and Arrow indulging in their favorite pasttime:

Next week, pictures about yard work. But now, on to some Darwinistic fun!

The Dining Room Evolution

We started redecorating the dining room in January, after the Lam Christmas Invasion was over. We were supposed to be done in February.

Here, you can see three stages of progress. First, you can see wallpaper still hung on the right side of the window. Second, you can see where the wallpaper has been removed from the left side of the window. Third, you can see what the underlying wall looks like after steaming off the adhesive backing paper left from the wallpaper.

Here's another shot of the north wall after pulling off the wallpaper but before steaming (ignore the Devil Dog in the kitchen):

This is the step that we just completed. We had to scrape off as much of the old primer layer as possible, so that the new primer didn't go on over flakey, adhesive-ey grossness. (That's a technical term.)

While scraping walls by hand might be one of the tortures of hell, it can't compete with the agony of trying to clean up the dust afterwards. And just think, the step we are about to start is fililng in holes and cracks with spackle, and then sanding everything down. Do you think AxMan carries EPA suits?