Friday Miscellany

Car Show!
We will be second-homeward bound later today. It is the highly anticipated weekend we go to the car show with Greg and Dave. I love the car show. I wish I had enough money to shut the thing down for 2 hours so I could just go through it alone with my friends, but that ain't gonna happen. It becomes hard to look at the cars critically when people are traipsing here and there and everywhere, but it is worth it nonetheless.


It isn't really so much the people in general as it is the children. I don't mean teens, I mean the young ones. It seems as if there is some tacit understanding among them that they must touch everything. I believe it is a well-organized conspiracy to take out the weakest among us by foisting child-borne disease upon them. It's almost like a contest. Who can leave more finger prints?


I like to touch things, too, to gain a further appreciation of the quality of the surface. Say a paint job, or the materials used for the interior. But I doubt these kids are touchy-feely for purposes of making a rational decision based on perceived quality. They just want to touch.

And sit and play car. In every car. This never gets tiring. To them. I am tired of it already and I won't be there for another 24 hours yet. I understand I have to wait in line to sit in a particular model. Maybe there is heavy buzz, it's a new introduction or there is a change from the previous year or something. I am critically evaluating these machines based on a specific list of wants and needs and the hope that someday, I can drop this Fisher Price company I work for and get a big boy job with a big boy paycheck. And no, I do not want to work at Big Boy.

I think there should be a rule that you have to have a credit rating over 700 to touch or sit in the cars. After all, most of us finance our cars so shouldn't we be required to show ability (if not intent) to purchase? I reckon that would knock out a bunch of people. Especially the kids. Let's face it, most of the adults, too.

Siriusly
As predicted, I am spending most of my time between Channel 30, 'The Coffeehouse', and channel 33, vaguely named 'The Bridge' with some 'Deep Trax' and 'Classic Vinyl' thrown in when I get tired of weepy singer songwriter types and their feelings. I admit, I love mush music, but sometimes it does get a little maudlin, like the later episodes of M*A*S*H when they stopped trying to be funny and started trying to prove a point. But I can change the channel and there is always something on and it is never someone trying to sell me a car. So far? Thumbs up.

Ferry Fairy
Among my many talents is driving and being in the right place this weekend to ferry a van across the state for my company. This is not the first time. Because of my unique situation (that of having and impossibly large area of responsibility through which, to which, and from which I am always driving) I fairly often get pressed into service as livery delivery, and courier. I quipped once to my boss that I am either the most over-paid courier or the most underpaid manager in America. He said I was both and sent me on my way. This means Em will drive back in Large Marge the Barge and I will follow (or attempt to) in some van of unknown origin and condition.

You'll recall we have lost many company vehicles over the last few months to deer and other maladies like the back ends of other cars and some guard rails. So we do the only thing that makes any sense, which is to buy more vehicles to crash. Yeee Haw, we're goin' for a record!

My assessment of some of the issues with our vehicles is that partially the reason for them getting into accidents is because they are improperly maintained. I drove one on a dark winter night and had to go so slow on the highway, not due to lack of power or ability to speed off, but because the headlights were so poor. I could have set the cruise control (oh, wait no I couldn't because that is an option, and options are not an option), so I could have put a cinder block on the pedal, gotten out and run beside the van with two stick candles and been able to see farther than by using the headlights alone. This fails to mention the dreadfully inadequate windshield wipers that barely touched the terribly pocked and scarred windshield. It was no surprise, by the way, that this very van would become the latest casualty of deer strike, (of course I haven't checked my e-mail or read my reports this morning so I suppose I may have spoken too soon), because if you can't see it, it may as well not be there. Anyway, problem solved. The hard way, perhaps, but that's the way we do things.

So, will it be a newer van that is still proud and has life left? Or will it be a sagging, rusty hulk with sunken springs that results in a sort of skyward look as if it were prostrate, begging God himself to smite it and put it out of its misery? I have my guesses. If I were a betting man, it will be a very loud, slow, giggly ride home wrestling a bouncy steering wheel, and squishy brakes that are only vaguely aware of their purpose. I doubt it will even have a radio. If it does, I won't be able to hear it over the din.

Then there's the picture of me driving a van with no windows merrily down the way. The kids call it a 'sketch van', as in 'sketchy'. We used to call it a kidnap van, or a Mister Rogers, (ok, I called it that... he creeped my out!). I hope to God there isn't an Amber Alert because I'll get pulled over and searched at the boarder of every municipality. I have one of those faces as it is... I just look even more guilty and lascivious behind the wheel of a windowless van. It the heater is bad, I'll have to put up the hood of my sweatshirt, which means they will assume I am on my way to blow up... something.
Pray for me, brothers, sisters, well-wishers and friends. It's gonna be a long ride home.

Small Voices and the Claw-Bearing Alarm Clock

Reading My Way Through 2011
So far, so good. I have read about the history and development of the airports of the world, which was a snooze, but I am glad I read it. I went on to read a book about a man who had a Lobotomy at the age of 12 and his struggles and tribulations and eventual redemption and peace. It was really good and very worth reading. Then, to clear my head, I rammed through the fourth book in the 'Dexter' series which was better than the third one, not as good as the first or second. I get the device, but the guy is supposed to be a serial killer and the body count is always racked up by the other killers. Dex gets in maybe one or two. The whole 'frustrated killer' thing is wearing a little thin. We'll see if this is fixed in the most recent book which I will read later in the year. Right now, I am taking 'A Walk in the Woods' with Bill Bryson following along as he hikes the Appalachian Trail. He has only just begun and I am already there with him. Bryson is a genius. A brilliant observer. An amazing writer. A great humorist.

'Walk...' will take me a little time. It's a bit lengthier and there is much to absorb in Bryson's dense writing. He packs a lot into as little as possible. He manages to get all the subtext of emotion through, too, so the spaces between the writing are important as well. You don't breeze through a Bryson book. You savor it. If you don't you'll miss half of it and that is a shame.

So I am on pace for 40 books. In the summer, I'll start reading two at a time, one for the outhouse, one for the bed side. For now, one is all I can do.


Dreams and Visions
Emily asked me to come up with a dream and outline some steps to achieve it. This as assistance for an exercise the Cool Cats (her hearing impaired student group) are doing. I have so many dreams, I don't know where to begin. But, again for the second time in as many days, goal setting came up as a topic of conversation. So, I shall set some goals and some metrics and go forth. My first goal is to find the time to pluck a do-able dream from the many floating just above my head which are not so tangible (like being a pirate, or owning an airplane, or having abs like the "Situation"), and set some goals. Baby steps.

Emily is focused on a garage. Good dream. Ours is moldering into the ground at an ever-increasing rate. It is alarming, actually. After 4 years of no discernible erosion, the old girl is coming down fast. The door, once nearly impossible to operate is now essentially impossible to operate. A window rotted and popped out of its frame. I think it was a load bearing window. Anyway, it is no longer a weather tight structure and it would be feeble to expend the effort to try and make it so.

The time is growing nigh and so we are talking about it in hushed tones with the vehemence that comes when ones hand is forced and action must be taken. I have offered favors of day labor to several friends who have projects they are working on in the hopes I can cash those chips in before too long because the only way I am going to get a new garage is to build one myself. And by myself, I mean myself and my army of fine friends who have carpentry skills and work for beer. Domestic beer. Cheap domestic beer. From a keg.

I am looking every day at the kit garage website and seeing if there is a closeout model that just went on sale for 90% off, but of course lumber never goes out of style, so that's not likely to happen. And of course the economy is picking up a bit so prices are starting to come alive. Unfortunately, my company hasn't heard of this new-found optimism and I am still operating on a salary reduction.

But even if I wasn't that still would change anything. The line between want and need is going to cross sooner rather than later and something will have to give. Likely that something will be the main support beam of my garage.

One Last Note
Sometimes I am myopic and don't really see what's going on outside my own sphere. I saw Clayton Pauer, who I used to work with at Barnes and Noble in Muskegon in December. It was all me me me me me me me me me me me. Why he didn't punch me in the face is beyond me me me me me me. And so while Clayton was apprised of all aspects of my life, I never stopped to realize he has some big things going on, too. Please go to his web page and read about his quest. He and Mike Spalsbury (who worked with us as well and with whom I was at one point going to try to be on a game show testing out knowledge of pop culture) are doing this together and need support in many forms. Give them a hand if you are able.

Clay-hopefully my plug makes up for my endemic egomaniacal inability to ask the simple question, "what have you been up to?" Best of luck and I can't wait to talk to you in person about your plans and how this all came about. Benne fortuna!