If you spill something, a dog will lick your deck clean!

"Our brains are constantly comparing current experience with the past, trying to find a fit so that we can make a quick decision. When we find a match, often in a fraction of a second, our intuition boils down a lot of experience into a simple, visceral metric: I feel good about this or not".

A lot of times I doubt my intuition or I believe my intuition tells me to do something far more challenging than I'm ready to achieve. I believe the single most important element that can keep us out of trouble is trusting our intuition. Notice this sentence has two parts: (1) intuition, and (2) trusting. Intuition without trust is like a gift without the means to unwrap it.

One of the strangest things I remember when I was dating my future wife was when we would be hundreds of miles apart and we would think of each other at the same time. Sometimes she would act on the intuition and call me or I would call her, but the result was how each of us was thinking of the other at that exact moment. Different than intuition, I suppose, and more like ESP. I believe in ESP as well, to an extent. I believe a person can be trained to pick up on messages of a nearby brain, or at least be able to increase one's chances of correctly picking up on messages sent from this nearby person.

This blog is going nowhere.

I've thought a lot about changing careers lately. I am trained in computer programming, and it wouldn't be a stretch for me to pick up or get trained in internet programming. I have some minor HTML and have worked with CSS on the elementary level, so that's a start. I'm looking for a job where I can have the option to work for myself, one in which I can be more creative, and possibly write copy, and a position which affords me more interaction with other warm human beings in the world. Internet content writing may not be the ideal, but it is something I would be very good at. I see myself in 6 years creating something that will last forever.

I just returned from a trip to Chicago late last night. There is so much rich stuff to write down in a blog that I hope I can remember it all.

The visit was to see my folks and attend a little party thrown in honor of my brother who was serving in the U.S. Army in Afghanistan the past 6 or 7 months. He's back and probably won't deploy again. He retires in 3.5 years. The party was yesterday afternoon and there were probably 30 people or more in attendance. I found myself playing a lot of frisbee with the kids & having that as a distraction instead of visiting with cousins, relatives, the American Legion Women's Auxiliary, or my parent's neighbors. I did take breaks from frisbee to socialize, or maybe I took breaks from socializing to play frisbee. Doesn't matter. I needed to run around and be physical and other people need to hang out, drink a beer, and have that kind of social time. My mom had about 10 varieties of cakes and cookies and pastries. Then guests brought some of their own. Then some pizza arrived. Then we sang "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow!" Then my brother cut the cake, the sheet cake frosted in his honor. Then we all had cake and more sweets. It was a bit surreal. My parents opened up a bag of M&M packages, dumped them in a bowl, and encouraged 3 girls to take as much as they wanted. Then they opened up a second bag and did the same thing. Meanwhile the father of the girls was shaking his head, saying, "no, no, no" to himself, outloud. I know it's out of love, but it is possible to give kids too much candy and sweets. This act will change their diet for 3 weeks and change the parent's communication with the children for 3 weeks, and especially the next few days. This act will force work on the parents who have their own disposition about sweets. Out of love, but just wrong.

Almost as wrong as my dad spraying the shrubs and perimeter of the backyard with this product called a bug fogger, which is supposed to kill off and discourage bugs to come into the yard. I called this act of spraying "disgusting". He said he was "thinking of other people". Well so am I, when I say I want to be able to run around, touch vegetation, eat food, and not transfer poison from my hands to my mouth and body.

Then there was the soduko puzzle I finished. My first.

Then there was the multiple trips to Chili's with my brother to enjoy some cool beverages. And the bartender he befriended a few years back.

Then there was running two mornings in a row in "my old stomping grounds". One highlight was getting onto the running track of Glenbrook South High School, where I used to train and be proud of 60's during interval workouts.

Then there was the lunch Sunday afternoon where I said I was going to Taco Bell, and they all got animated and said "with all this food around here, how can you go out?" And I asked what kind of food there were talking about? The cake, the cookies, the chips, the pretzels. So my mom opened the fridge and said "do you want a hard boiled egg?" I mean, there is nothing wrong with offering a hard boiled egg. It's is nourishing. But there wasn't anything in the house except 4 slices of Panera's old bread, romaine lettuce, and some ham. I ended up respecting their persuasion, stayed home, and prepared myself a peanut butter sandwich.

Then there was the desire to bring a plastic palm looking tree from downstairs in the basement to the outside porch. I vetoed that motion as quick as I could.

Then there was the usual stress around preparing a party. Streamers, locations of pictures, music or no music, where to put the pizza, where to put the coffee pot, and so on.

At the same time, I got good parents. I got a hug from my dad, which was appropriate. But get this: my brother and I were hanging out with our nephews at our sister's house for a while, then when she came home, she greeted everyone, I sat back down on the couch, and she says something about sitting down and sits down on my lap and puts her arm around my neck. I dunno. This lap is for me and my wife and kids. But a sister? I pushed her off and slid 5 inches towards the arm of the couch. With little effort, we were separated.

I enjoyed playing card tricks with my nephews. I bought them a little book & decks of cards from Barnes and Noble and when we got to their house we spend a good amount of time trying to master some of the tricks. Good fun.

If so, check out The Brick Testament!

I guess you may click this link if you are bored.

Trying to grow grass in the backyard. Last night I was talking to my brother on the phone and I tried for about 30 minutes to get one of these sprinklers that rotates to go full circle. The kind that makes the chik-chik-chik sound. I eventually broke it then sort of repaired it and found some combination to make it go around in a circle. This morning I turned on the water and expected it to rotate around and it went half a circle, then stopped. I messed with it but it would go part of the way, then stick again. I sat on the steps when I thought it was going well, then called my wife on the phone, then sat back and watched the sprinkler get stuck again. My 4-year-old son was out there and put his hand down to the yellow thing on the top of the sprinkler and to my amazement he got the sprinkler going the way I intended. His sprinkler IQ impressed me.

Have I ever posted the Fly Guy before?

Flash Game by Fun On It

Google at my site by clicking here.

Or if you prefer, you may yahoo at my site here.

Now my wife is leaving for a two day fishing trip today. I lie. The fishing trip is one day, but she needs to leave 24 hours early because the drive is pretty long. I guess it takes 4 hours to find a good location and a chartered boat. She keeps reminding me this is probably the last time she'll have some close time with her father. He is fighting cancer, and has a miraculous few months with a new drug that just came on the market. Hopefully the drug keeps working. Hopefully the wife has a fruitful fishing experience.

Of course, you may customize the search engines above by visiting this link and entering the string of your choice.

And a mildly entertaining fake photo creation site.

Not to be remiss, but I nearly ended this blog without including the Zidane Head Butt Game. If you are not familiar with the story, read about it here.

You've asked for it, so here it is: the Domino Chain of Junk.

She ran across the meadow and ducked under low tree branches to reach the corner of the grizzly forest. It was not the same forest she visited as a child. It had grown hard, wet, strong, and had a presence that flirted with life, with breath. She slowed down by the brook and found a rock to sit upon. It was damp with afternoon dew, for the day had not been warm with the high sun, but was cool and misty like the skin after passionate intimacy.

She sat on the rock and contemplated the waves bouncing and caressing the boulders below. She was free. The waves were free. But why, she wondered, do I run from my dreams? I run from one dream to another, yet I still do not understand the dream from which I most recently ran away from. I will sit here a while, she said, and allow myself to be vulnerable to my last dream. This will work. This will. This.

In a moment she awoke from her trance, picked up her limbs, and ran from that spot, under the trees and out of the forest, and ran until she reached a bright rock at the corner of the sunny meadow. Panting and deliberate, she sat down to contemplate the mystical field.

This must be the funniest Star Trek cartoon I've seen in ages. Okay, I've never seen a Star Trek cartoon until yesterday.

Cartoon courtesy of Curt Danhauser at http://www.ridgecrest.ca.us/~curtdan/TREK/TAS.cgi?FILE=Larson.

My wife and daughter are fans of the electronic Sudoku game. My wife complains to my daughter that the girl is cheating because she'll fill in every box with a number, the same number, then when it errors, she'll be left with some boxes filled in correctly with this number. It's not cheating, I tell her, because the program is written that way. Was it cheating for Captain Kirk, as described in one of the middle movies, to reprogram a simulator test so that his team would be the only team to successfully complete a mission? He allowed himself not to let the game define how to accomplish victory. Similarly, our daughter plugs all 3's into every square so she will be left with the 3's in the correct square. Maybe she's invented an unintended game, but the game exists.

For those of you who use paper and pencil, here is a great write-up which describes how to "Solve Sudoku without even thinking".

I'm thinking about going back to school. This makes the second time in 12 months I'm toying with the idea of going to school. Toying. I'd like to get skilled as a web developer, which I learn is a slightly younger cousin to the web programmer. In terms of programming, I've been there, done it. Now Cobol programming isn't web programming, but I have a good feel for the discipline and the energy it takes work in this field. I also want a field that is more interpersonal, and one that combines my communications background with technology. Seems like a logical plan and perhaps this time the plan will bear some fruit.

Here's the problem. In order to take classes at the community college and attempt to get a certificate, I need to take between 6 and 15 classes. The certificate and the knowledge I'd have after 6 classes would not be worth much to me. The "advanced" certificate takes 12-15 classes, and at one class per semester, that would take 4 years. 4 freakin years of my being in the same job. Long time. I can't exactly quit my job and take the classes over one year. That would be a luxury, but who is going to pitch in and help pay the mortgage? And feed the kids. So I got to start thinking outside the box and find a solution or my enthusiasm in this plan may wane.

Not only that but my wife wants to hire a baby-sitter for each day of the week I need to go to school or study. The baby-sitting cost is going to be higher than the tuition cost. It sure would help things if I quit my job after all.

You may watch the world population grow in front of your eyes at the World Population Counter.

This one!!

Listening to a lot of Kent today. Great music. I know he's singing about Palace & Main, but I don't know what the heck he's singing about.

Here is a helpful Shakespeare Insult Kit you can use for those times you're struggling for the proper Elizabethan insult. I tried using it on my cat so it peed on the floor.

Got an email from one of the members on the congregation's (church's) program council. He said they postponed for one month a vote on my proposal to launch an annual publication of poetry, prose, and limited works of visual art. I will keep you posted. If the proposal is voted down, I'll be sure to visit the Shakespeare Insult Kit yet again.

http://thecleverest.com/content/attractors_water.swf--Just follow the directions. You'll get the hang of it.


I'm sorry. You absolutely, absolutely must check out More Than A Feeling, found at a fellow blogger.com site Music For Maniacs post this past April. Did I mention this was an "absolutely"?

If you have headphones, be sure to check out MFM's holyphonic sound demonstration at http://musicformaniacs.blogspot.com/2006/06/holophonic-sound.html.

Now I'm downstairs alone & I just put my mom to bed. Sounds kinda peculiar to say this, putting her to bed, but she came down to visit me for the weekend and at the end of a long day, she was exhausted and time for her to turn in. I gave her my daughter's bed and after blogging and put my daughter in our bed for the night.

The day was filled. Picked up grandma at the airport at 9:45 a.m. then drove east to The Henry Ford Museum at Greenfield Village. Spent at least two hours at the indoor part of the museum and saw the "Rosa Parks' Bus", the Oscar Meier Weiner car, the most exact replica of the Wright Brother's plane that flew at Kitty Hawk, the earliest cars, and of course, the Henry Ford Museum gift shop.

I found it ironic who the bathroom, equipped with the periodic floor tile, urinals, and bathroom stalls, had the out-of-place motion sensitive paper towel dispenser.

After The Henry Ford, we found ourselves at LaShish where we dined on lentil soup, chicken shwarma sandwich, feta fatoosh salad, and my son had chicken nuggets, of course.

Came home from the museum to greet an afternoon of backyard work. I left myself with a backyard full of wood chips yesterday after I greeted a gardener with a tree stump chipper. My choice. Hours of labor to clean up. It is worth a picture, but the backyard is far cleaner than it was 31 hours ago, though the wife might find this hard to comprehend. Took my second shower of the day, made grilled cheese and finger food for grandma, the kids, and I. Ran off for Toys R Us to get a little something for a birthday party. Stopped by Target on the way home and picked up some plastic storage boxes. Got home and started storing various whatnots in the new containers, then put the kids to bed. At 9:00 p.m. it was time for the wife & I to have a glass of wine.

I'm impressed (but slightly less impressed than the Boston cover above) with many of the works I've previewed at this site. Just for the raw unabashed effort of these kids to get up in front of their friends and family, I give this an A+ for gutsy expression. And I applaud Rick Hartsoe for expecting much from his students and receiving that which he expected. Not enough of that going on in schools these days, in my opinion.