I've once again fallen off in my blogging practice... My vacation got busy after Saturday and I just didn't spend so much time on the computer. Monday (8/25) was my birthday, a good day, and I'm going to transcribe something that I wrote that afternoon in a little bit here. But then Wednesday I went back to work and was right up to my eyeballs in a bunch of stuff, including acting-out kids, staffing shortages and of course the backlog of stuff that had piled up while I was gone. I even had to work some contact shifts to help the program get by while we dealt with a lack of available staff (open positions, vacations, illnesses, etc.) Yesterday was a day off but I was busy fixing my broken clothes-dryer, running to the library and taking my daughter out shopping for a keyboard for her computer that she ruined by spilling a bowl of Ramen noodles. Last night, we had the whole family together again so we played a very lame trivia board game from 1983 that we found out in our garage. At first it was funny because the questions were so laughably simple and obvious, but we soon got bored of that and we watched a new DVD I just got for my birthday called Koyaanisqatsi. It's a film that came out in the mid-80's - highly recommended, a powerful combination of visuals and music that depicts our world in an emotionally evocative way. I also own the sequel, Powaqqatsi, and eagerly anticipate the release of the final installment of the trilogy, Naqoyqatsi which is actually my favorite of the three, though they are each excellent in their own way.

Here's the quote from my journal that I just mentioned:

"But in any case, I am able to affirm once again after all these years: LIFE IS GOOD! There may be more than the occasional interference with our ability to consistently or accurately perceive that goodness, but the knowledge, that deep, heart-level, unshakeable and ever-reconfirming-itself assurance that life is a bottom-line net positive remains ever present, and with just a touch of disciplined effort, we can regain our apprehension and appreciation of that central tenet.

I am richly, abundantly, extravagantly blessed just by virtue of that which has already passed. Think of 42 years, what richness, depth and beauty I have beheld and been privileged to create. Maybe the archives of humanity, thie history books or best seller lists or public libraries of our world will not be uncommonly impacted by the words I write or the deeds I perform, but I have helped shape reality and that is, after all, the ultimate medium in which to work!

All experience is, it remains, a kind of artifice, an expression of our hearts and souls, so let's give full voice to that which we feel springing up most clearly and boldly within us! Through the tears and the awkwardness and the confusion and the noise and the silence, we can sound notes that more purely reveal our heart's desires and intention, and these ringing tones can move through the air and shape the substance of the universe into something that it would neverwise have been if we had just kept it all to ourselves.

That is the daily privilege and duty of being alive. If it be in the form of spoken word or the ethereal motion of a prayer - the push of muscle upon limb upon material surface, or the etching of a word signifying a concept capturing a thought. All these are ways in which we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable powers and let no one fool you into thinking that "it doesn't make a difference." God does not see it that way - God does not grant us the honor of bearing the divine image so that we would ultimately surrender to feelings of despair and futility. Though we must recognize, wrestle with and work through such real, tangible emotions - they can never be the stopping point for those of us who seek to follow Jesus.

In him we see a resounding and eternal "Yes" even in the face of the worst that this life seems able to offer - separation from one's friends and family, unjustified and undeserved persecution, humiliation, rejection, scorn and mockery, intense physical pain and torment, final execution and apparent abandonment. Through all that, Jesus reamined steadfast, clear, determine and overflowing with compassion. He's the kind of person we would all want to be, I hope. And praise God that we are not called upon to pass through, so far at least, even a pale echo of what we read about in the gospels. But should we find ourselves, at life's critical junctures, having to face such a calling, we can be confident that the same spirit that bore Jesus through his trials, and sustained so many who have walked in his steps ever since, will also infuse, empower and ennoble our own faltering efforts, even as we would ask for that cup to be taken from us if it be God's will.

So that's a bit of what I've learned as I've gotten older. In some ways, it's just another variation of what I've known for so many years - just the latest version, my most recent expression of it. It's good to bring all that to mind every so often, especially on occasions like one's forty-second birthday!"

OK, I am going to have to comment on this Judge Roy Moore Ten Commandments thing. What is this really all about? It seems like he has established a reputation for himself as the "Ten Commandments Judge" and rode this populist wave to become a political celebrity in the state of Alabama. Fine, he is running his game, just like any other person who once upon a time came up with a plan to make his or her self a household name of sorts. I trust that he's sincere in this and honestly feels like something important is at stake in the controversy that he's created by putting this big 5000 pound monument in the courthouse rotunda or wherever it is that it's located.

But what is so important about this, to the point where some of his loyal followers are claiming that (wait, let me get a quote here...) "This is an assault on God. They're saying we're going to cover up God." That was spoken by a pastor, Stephen Hopkins of Texas, who also said he was willing to be arrested for this cause.

Let me spell out my feelings here. For one, I am a strong supporter of free speech and I am not all that comfortable with the government outlawing a sculpture. I have no real problem with a monument like this one if the citizens of a town or region want to support such an expression. But I'm also not sure that I can trust or respect Moore's motives. He is a very influential figure in the criminal justice system and I wonder about his ability to be fair to people who don't share his presuppositions about the law and religion. He has put himself out so far in front as an activist that it seems like his role as Chief Justice in Alabama is inevitably compromised, certainly in the public mind at least. Especially since his actions have not gained any support from his fellow justices. For whatever reason, his handling of this controversy as made him a hard figure to defend as far as his colleagues are concerned, and he almost seems more intent on whipping his supporters into a frenzy than in reaching a settlement that could conceivably be more to everyone's satisfaction. I'm sure that a middle road in this could have been found but instead, he's even gotten many of his conservative allies lined up against his position, even though they may be reluctant to have to declare themselves one way or the other.

So I just wonder, what is he really trying to accomplish? Is he simply delusional in pursuit of some kind of martyrdom or ultimate showdown? Does he not already see how well-represented and politically powerful his views already are in our government? He seems rather greedy to me, seeking not just representation but actual dominance for his particular point of view, and in the USA, that is what most of us would consider "overstepping."

My opinion is that he's had his day in the sun, he pushed it too hard and blew it, now he has to deal with the aftermath and doesn't really deserve much sympathy because he simply didn't handle his end of the stand-off in a way that others could work with.

If I saw something vital or important at stake here, my views would be different. No one is being repressed or disenfranchised, constitutional rights are not at stake here... it's just the placement of the monument and Moore's insistence that it stay right where it is over the objections of the legal authorities who are deemed responsible to decide these things that is the problem. No one is muzzling or gagging God, no one is being forced to compromise their faith or principles as far as they have the right to do so in their private and even public lives - the courthouse is not Moore's property, it's a public space and enough people don't like how he has decorated it to force a change.

Pretty simple, really. If he and his supporters want to get civilly disobedient, I invite them to accept the consequences and see where that gets them.

Bought a new lawn mower today. Interested in what kind? Here's a link to the Lowe's website that gives you the info you need.

Last night, Julie, Dad, my sister Debbie, her husband Ed and I spent the evening at a couple of yacht clubs near Lake Michigan. First stop was the Bayshore, which is more of a power-boater's association, judging from the majority of the boats docked nearby. It's fairly small and plain, especially compared to the other club we visited, the Macatawa, which was not only bigger but seemed more affluent and longer established. Also quite a bit closer to the big lake. The purpose of our visits was to exchange burgees, since Dad is the Commodore of the Sint Maarten Yacht Club. This is among the many things that Commodores do.

We had a nice dinner and I enjoyed being back in that environment again. It's been a few years.

This morning, I watched part of my Monty Python and the Holy Grail DVD, with the audio commentary from John Cleese, Michael Palin and Eric Idle. Very funny! I'm going to pick up Life of Brian soon too. It's been a long time since I've seen that one... Actually, I haven't watched it since I saw it for the third time in its original theatrical release, back in California, 1980 or so!

I remember seeing it with my friend Uday, who was from India, not Iraq, mind you. He died at home a couple of years later, under mysterious circumstances while talking to his girlfriend on the phone late one night. I never really found out the detailed answer of what happened, but I think it was some kind of congenital heart problem. No drugs or foul play involved. That really shook me and got me started on a more spiritual path in life.

I have to leave very soon. It's my daughter's Art Dept. orientation today and we get a chance to meet her faculty and see what the program is all about. I'll share my impressions later.

More about what I've been doing lately...

Watched my DVD of Gandhi yesterday morning. Actually, I've been watching it in short installments over the past several days, since it's a 3+ hour movie, a lot to take in for one sitting. Ben Kingsley deserved his Oscar for Best Actor for transforming himself into the Mahatma. One impressive thing about this movie is that it was filmed without any special effects, and there are some major crowd scenes where they gathered the proverbial "cast of thousands," even into the tens of thousands, for some portions of it. Living a relatively contained and perhaps even "isolated" (by comparison) life as far as my social contacts are concerned, it's hard to imagine what it took to get all these folks together. And of course, these were not Hollywood walk-ons. They filmed on location in India and obviously had to gather crowds from the local population, put them in attire fitting the time period, and get them to cooperate for the film shooting. And of course, Kingsley in several scenes had to do his Gandhi impersonation live, in front of this tremendous crowd!

The movie-making spectacle is secondary to the story itself, however. Though I consider it a classic and an amazing movie altogether, I must also say that it feels a bit dated and overly reverential toward Gandhi. It's kind of like watching the old fashioned Jesus movies, where each scene is just so pristinely and solemnly framed and orchestrated, bathed in that gorgeous glowing light. Gandhi is portrayed as a saint, which I guess we can say he was, but my hunch is that in real life, he was odder and quirkier than most Western audiences would be comfortable with. His asceticism was hard and unrelenting, and went beyond mere fasting, from what I've read. Anyway, the movie did get me thinking more about my own involvement in peace and justice issues. I feel like I've pretty much dropped out of that scene for the summer and now I have to figure out where I'm at with it as we get into the fall.

Last night we watched (as a family) Rabbit Proof Fence, a story of three girls in Western Australia set in 1931. The girls were half aboriginal and half caucasian, and a government department passed laws allowing them to take these "mixed" children away from their aborigine families and send them to training camps for the purpose of improving them, according to the racist thinking prevalent at the time. These girls decide to run away from the camp and find their way back to their mother. The challenge is that they have to cross 1200 miles of the Australian outback to do it, evading trackers and local police along the way. It's a well-made movie, and based on a true story. Quite worthwhile, especially for family viewing. I am wondering, though, if it would be good to show the girls at Wedgwood. The cross-cultural exposure would be great for them, but I wonder how much they would sympathize with the runaways and identify us as the stifling, repressive and misguided authorities who "kidnapped" them from their families?!

Music: I got a few new CD's - Led Zeppelin's "How The West Was Won" and Pearl Jam's "Live at State College, PA" are both triple live collections of two great heavy rock bands. I like the Zeppelin DVD's better, because there's more variety and you can actually see the band go through its changes, whereas the CDs are from one particular (and especially strong) period of the band's performing days. But it's still a great collection, lots of extended versions of their best early material. I'm not as familiar with Pearl Jam but I heard this was a good introduction to the band and having listened to it once, I am pretty impressed. This may suffice my need for Pearl Jam music though. And I also got a CD from a trip-hop electronic artist known as Tricky. His music is probably less accessible than the blues-rock sounds of Zeppelin or Pearl Jam, but I like this kind of stuff too. It's got a darker, more urban feel to it, blending in some rap influences but not the kind of "bling bling" stuff that is more popular these days. Visit his website to get a better idea of what I'm talking about.

I took yesterday off as far as blogging and email was concerned. Spent most of my time with Dad, getting some shopping done at Meijer, lunch at Big Boy, with him and Grandma, mostly just conversing and being together. That was good. Not much to report here, at least not that I feel like recording here.

Bummed about the state of the world. Big explosions in Baghdad and Jerusalem. Sad. People just seemed bent on releasing their fury and despair into the lives of people they really know nothing about except that they have some membership in a group considered their enemy. Such violent hatred is so far from my heart - I don't know how a person can give such free permission to themselves to be so cruel, but that's just me. It obviously happens all the time, all over the world. I'm just different from all that, somehow.

Current reading material: Merchant of Venice, still. It's been kind of slow going. Just read Portia's "quality of mercy is not strained" bit, which she delivered in disguise as an attempt to persuade Shylock to voluntarily relinquish his bond for Antonio's pound of flesh... Do you know what I'm talking about? I remember once, I saw an LP by an old English punk band called the Mekons that had a picture of a chimpanzee sitting at a typewriter with the words "the quality of mercy is not strnen" over its head... alluding to the old axiom about a million monkeys on a million typewriters, etc. Kind of funny. It wasn't until some years later that I understood that the quote was from Shakespeare and fully appreciated the joke, though I did get it basically when I first saw it of course. I just didn't know that particular speech or "Merchant of Venice" in general.

My wife Julie actually read that play in high school, at South Christian. I can kind of see why a private Christian school might choose that particular play, because of the aformentioned speech, and other material dealing with religious conversion and applying one's faith to real life. The play does carry some controversial baggage though because of the anti-Semitic platform it provides in the depiction of the cruel, money-grubbing, avaricious Shylock, whose villainy conforms to the worst of Jewish stereotypes. I haven't gotten to the end yet, so I don't know exactly how it will all turn out.

Speaking of Jewish, I'm also reading Exodus. I'm at the part where the details of the ark, tabernacle and now Aaron's robe and vestments are described. I am trying to imagine when all this tradition developed and how it came to be that YHWH was regarded as the one who spelled out the specific instructions for each item. I have difficulty understanding why this would all be so important to God, really. And I find it very implausible that all these events just happened as described, or that there wasn't some kind of pre-existing tradition that all this grew out of over the course of centuries (as these things typically do.) Scholars have detected various layers to the text, though I don't think I'll take the time to sort all that out for myself. But just reading through it, it doesn't really seem likely that at a certain point, Moses came down with these "blueprints" so to speak, people read them over, fashioned all the items and then began to perform these rituals obediently and as described from that point on. And all the killing! It seems like an artificially manufactured way to "begin" a religion! It sems more believable that these procedures grew in complexity and formality over time, and at some point were codified for reference. But when? The precision of detail in Exodus seems more likely to have grown out of a community that had already been established, thriving and with a clear understanding of sacred dignity, holiness and taboos that don't just spring up in a moment. Somehow, the account was retro-projected into Israel's past, into the formative era that would lend these rituals the maximum due reverence and authority.

Maybe I'll just have to crack open my commentary for some more background on all that.

Recent videos: The Hours - helpful for those of us who want to get in touch with our inner lesbian. (sarcasm...) Kind of a depressing movie, and I didn't feel as much sympathy with the characters as I'm sure the filmmakers intended me to. I respect the bravery and originality of the film, but perhaps my enjoyment was dampened by the occasion of watching the film when I was in the mood for something a bit more energizing. I did appreciate getting to know a bit more about Virginia Woolf. (The special feature was especially illuminating in this regard. It made her more appealing a figure to me than the movie itself.)

Love's Labour's Lost - I found this Kenneth Branagh production very entertaining, after having just read the play. It's a hybrid of Shakespeare's play and old Hollywood musicals. I don't often watch musicals but I have in the past and I can appreciate them to some degree. This one is amusing because they use the pop standards somewhat ironically and the performances are somewhat amateurish which to me increases their appeal.

Moer later, but I gotta shower and have some lunch...

This blogging format works backwards so if you want to read the beginning of this story, go to today's 04:12:00 PM entry.

After dropping off Alyssa at GVSU, my dad, Julie and I headed back to our house, with one brief shopping trip along the way. Soon after we arrived, I contacted her on AIM and we were able to chat a bit more but she was about to run off and get busy with her orientation meetings and activities and I haven't heard from her since.

But the main order of business now that she was moved out was to go meet the rest of the family for a dinner celebrating Grandma's birthday. As mentioned earlier in this space, we went to Bennigan's Irish-American Tavern, which is a franchise operation that Debbie & Ed (my sister and her husband) suggested. I had a pint of Guinness and fish & chips. It was all good. My dad ordered their "Famous Fish" which he wound up not liking at all and he complained to the waitress about it. I've seen him do this before - he has high standards for restaurant food and is something of a conneisseur. He's qualified to be - he's traveled all over and spent lots of time and money in places of high quality, so I will trust that he knows what he's talking about. He will praise quality when he sees it - but unlike most people, I think, he will mention when something isn't specifically to his liking. The rest of us at dinner last night all enjoyed our meals fine enough.

Anyway, he wasn't at all a jerk about it, he just mentioned several reasons that he didn't care for the fish and we went on from there. On the way home, Julie and I talked about his outspokenness on this issue, and after a few minutes of talking about my dad, weaving in some insights I have to his character based on our years of acquaintance, I found myself getting emotional, even to the point of tears. I said something to Julie about how this conversation, and thinking of my past, was stirring up a lot of stuff... A few minutes later, I had to pull over to a side street because I was sobbing uncontrollably!

So what triggered that? Oh, much more than I have time or willingness to spell out here. But the main thing was just me remembering what it was like for me when I moved out of my dad's house back in 1980. A much more difficult and unhappy situation that what Alyssa went through! There's just so much there, so many wounds and griefs and sensitivities all the way around that I probably should keep private, but let me say this much. I moved out of a nice suburban house to live in a basement hallway in a house in the Sunset district of San Francisco, a college house full of guys who didn't give a care for me but were happy enough to take the $75 a month that I would kick in to cover the rent. From there, well, even though I was glad to get out on my own and enjoy some freedom, my life got a lot more difficult and led to many more experiences that did leave an impact on me, gave me some stories to tell and exposed me to much that I am grateful to have known, but also opened the gateway to some sadnesses that I would like to have avoided. So the emotions were partly of sadness, partly of gratitude and satisfaction that I had at least done what it took to get my sweet daughter off to college, which I know for many folks is not that big a deal but for my family, I think she's the first person on either side to have made this particular journey of going off to University to live in a dorm and pursue a liberal arts education. Oh, my wife's sister actually went to Michigan State and became a doctor but she did so without her family's blessing and had to go through a divorce to get her education taken care of. There is a long way for Lys to go before she's fully educated, of course, and I suppose it's inevitable that things will get much more complicated before all is said and done, but I was really moved to consider the significance of this passage and what I've been able to overcome to get to this point from the full-blown disaster that my life so easily could have become, and so closely resembled at various points along the way!

I figured out how to edit links on the side column so that's a step in the right direction. I tried adding my email address as well but that didn't work. I will try again later. But now let me describe yesterday...

It was a loaded day. Of course, upon waking up, I recalled that it was Julie's and my wedding anniversary. It's a happy occasion, but this past week has been so busy and we've had some communication difficulties, which cast a bit of a cloud over things, emotionally speaking. Still, we greeted each other with a kiss and embrace, realizing that this would be a unique and memorable anniversary for us, however it all turned out.

So the first thing I did was get on the computer and write my fantasy baseball column, which I normally do every Monday or Tuesday. I wanted to get it out of the way and I I was feeling creative anyway. I figured I'd be too busy to do it any other time on Monday and didn't know what the next day would hold either. I got it done, did a decent job with it, and put that away. My team is in first place in my division and I am one game off pace for best record overall and home field advantage so things are going pretty good in that way, but I don't think the audience for this blog really cares one bit about my fantasy baseball team so allow me to proceed.

Next objective was to get Alyssa packed and ready to go. She procrastinated pretty badly up until the weekend and still had a lot of little tidbits and last minute things to get together, but she really didn't need all that much either since she lives so close by. Her belongings fit into just a few boxes, including one for her bedding, as well as her new E-Mac computer which is her cute little pride and joy which we all admire because it's a Mac and she is free from living in the world of MicroSoft Windows (lucky girl!)

Shortly before we were getting ready to leave, my dad called from Grandma's apartment wondering if we'd be able to pick him up. I could imagine that after being dropped off in the morning and spending a few hours with her, he was ready to move on to some other things. So we went out of our way, driving through midday traffic in the opposite direction to go get him but it was clearly worth it because I enjoyed having him along for this momentous occasion.

We arrived at Grand Valley and drove through a long maze of cones that directed us exactly to where we needed to be. Within a few minutes, we had all the stuff unloaded, Alyssa got her key, we went to her room and dropped it all off. Her roommate, Cassie, had been there but wasn't present at that time. We sized up the room, determined what kind of cables we needed for TV and internet, and set off for the bookstore to get those items as well as Alyssa's texts for the new semester.

I was pretty surprised at how light a bookload Alyssa will have for at least the beginning of her college career. Her European Civ unit seems to focused on medieval Spain as they get things started. That seems kind of unique to me. Spain is much more unfamiliar to me than England, France, Germany, Italy or the Netherlands, for that matter. She only had to buy five books for that class, and one art text for her drawing class. And that was it! Still it ran me almost $200 but that included the cables, a power strip, an extension cord, etc. (All this detail, for what, I ask?)

We stopped at the Kleiner Commons for lunch, then went back to the room, met Cassie and her parents at last, and felt good about the matchup of our daughters. I will be interested to see how their relationship develops.

Then it was time to say goodbye. Of course, the main impact of such an occasion is in the symbolism - even now, a day later, it just seems like Alyssa is spending the night somewhere. It doesn't feel like she's really "moved out." Of course, her room is still full, and a mess, so not much has changed. But we gave our hugs to each other, exchanged a few affectionate words, parent-to-child stuff, and left without her!

Julie just got home from work (I took the day off today) so I'm going to cut off here for a bit and I'll finish the story later...

Today we feature a new look for the PoMoXian blog. I will get to my descriptions of recent events, but first, I have to figure out how to set up my links and other stuff so please excuse me for a brief time while I experiment...

My dad is back in town! That is not something that happens all that often, in my life anyway. We picked him up at the Gerald Ford International Airport yesterday and whisked him away (after the usual wait for baggage) to my grandma's/his mom's 80th birthday party open house reception. The party mostly consisted of a handful of family members (his aunt and some cousins, besides us) and other residents of Grandma's apartment complex. My mom (his ex-wife) was also there and it was interesting for me to see them both together, chatting and stuff. This has happened a few times, but not too many, and it always makes me just think back over the course of our family history and all the stuff that's happened to get us all in the places and life situations we find ourselves in today. But this is a general truism that anyone could say about his or her family, so I will cease with the blather...

Mostly the party was about small talk, ice cream and cake. Dad's looking good, fit and trim and dignified. He is a Commodore, after all! He brought a digital camera along, so once I get some of these pictures, I'll link them to this blog. I'll be seeing him later on this afternoon or evening for Grandma's actual birthday dinner, when we head over to Bennigan's restaurant, which I've never been to but sounds good.

But shortly after I get done with this blog, I'm going to get my daughter's things packed up and move her and them into the residence hall over at GVSU. This is the day we've been focusing on for awhile, and now it's here. I was talking with Lys last night, thinking about the transforming experience that awaits her as she heads off to college. I envy her opportunity to study all this cool stuff, to spend hours perfecting her skills at creating art and the whole new social world she's entering. Makes me wish I had more of a chance to get into that myself but I had to find my own way in a more chaotic environment than Alyssa's ever known. That's just how it is!

One thing to confess here... yesterday morning I went to a local church (won't mention it by name 'cuz I'm about to get critical.) About halfway into it, I just decided that there was no point in my being here - the service was boring, the clergy in charge of the service was making some rather corny attempts at humor during the "children's message" and really just talking right past the kids and to the adults even though his phrasing and stuff was aimed at the youngsters in a way, because he would never directly address the congregation in such an offhand, colloquial way. I was just put off by the awkwardness of the whole situation and I realize as I think about it that I am at a point where I just don't have much patience at all for the kind of pretense and formulas that seem so hard to avoid when going to church. It's not a comfortable or happy place to be, since I still like the idea of attending worship and being with other Christians on a regular basis. It's just the little conventionalities and, to be honest, the need to gratify people whose approach to God and views of culture are so different from mine, that put me in this difficult position of feeling dismayed or even offended by various expressions made by people who blithely assume that everyone else is on the same wavelength when that's really not the case at all.

So feeling and thinking all that, or something close to it, I walked out during the pre-sermon hymn. I don't like doing that, but I just felt like I was being false, sitting there and recognizing that there's little chance that I would ever settle into that community and make their priorities my own.

I'm still not sure what I'm going to do about this situation. But that's a process that will require more thought, time and consideration than I'll be able to give it this morning. On to more urgent things!

Just got a few minutes to lay something down here. Today's a big day for me... my dad is coming up to visit us for the first time since 1997! Tomorrow is my grandma's (his mom's) 80th birthday, so he was pretty much obliged to make the appearance. He lives in Sint Maarten, an island in the Caribbean, where he owns part of a yacht brokerage, Bay Island Yachts, and also serves as Commodore of the Sint Maarten Yacht Club. (MIDI Alert: "Sailing" by Christopher Cross will serenade you when you visit their home page!)

We're having the birthday party today, since it's Sunday, more convenient to the guests. Plus my daughter Alyssa moves into her dorm at Grand Valley State University tomorrow, so we will be focusing on the move tomorrow. And on top of all that, it's my 19th wedding anniversary (Julie's too!) tomorrow. So lots going on over my way. I'll have stories to tell later, but gotta go now.

I haven't been on the computer much lately, so no chance to blog over these past few days. I wasn't affected by the big power outage - it's another reason I'm happy to live in West Michigan. Apparently the blackout was rolling west after Detroit shut down, but power engineers in the county east of here saw it coming and were able to take action in time to avert disaster.

Wednesday was the twins' birthday. They turned 16. We got them some stylish Fossil watches (here's Curts and here's Brandon's for their other gifts, they got mostly cash or gift cards to clothing stores. No toys, and they're fine with that...

On Thursday, I went with a group from work to Michigan's Adventure amusement park. It was a hot day, we rode the roller coasters and did the water slides. Since I had been to Cedar Point the week before, this trip was kind of anti-climatic, but the Shivering Timbers roller coaster is a very good ride and given all the options, it wasn't such a bad way to spend a day at work!

Yesterday was just a busy day at the office for me as I wrap things up in anticipation of 10 days away from Wedgwood. I have a very eventful week ahead, which I will be sure to document in this space as it all unfolds. It was so busy that I didn't even take my normal Friday lunch break with the guys at the Village Inn Pizza Parlor where we gather each week to talk about our Fantasy Sports teams and whatever else may be on our minds. We had one girl leave the program, replaced by her younger sister, interestingly. I sent my assistant about 10 different emails pertaining to various matters that she'll be dealing with during my absence, and after putting the next work schedule together and touching base with the staff working the Friday evening shift, I closed up my office and stepped out for a nice stretch of freedom and self-determination!

So last night the twins and I went to the mall to have their new watches adjusted - the wristbands were a bit loose. They took turns driving and did really well. Then Julie and I watched a video, "Looking for Richard," a documentary made by Al Pacino back in the mid-90's. It's about his efforts to produce Shakespeare's "Richard III," which is apparently a popular one, mostly due to the extreme villainy of the title character. He's the one who says, " A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!" The movie is full of very interesting insights about the play, about how actors prepare for their performances, how directors and others decide how to interpret the text in their actions and vocalizations, and how to make Shakespeare meaningful and effective for modern audiences. I was impressed and will want to watch it again when I get through my Shakespeare reading project to the Histories. I'm still working on the comedies, with "Merchant of Venice" as my current text.

Also, I'm halfway through Exodus in my Tanakh reading project. During my upcoming time off, I plan to work on my website a bit more. Rick Presley has uploaded his collection of Gamaliel columns and I want to make them a bit more friendly to web readers. Plus my PoMoXian library needs to be developed, linked, etc. Plenty to keep me busy over the next week and a half!

OK, I'm doing this blog from work now. Since my internet connection is slow and I'm working on a Win95 Pentium MMX hand-me-down computer, I'm not going to be able to do much with links it seems. The window here is much simpler than the one I'm used to working with at home.

All that aside, here's the news. We just had a tornado warning! No twister came within several miles of here, but something was reported at an address a bit closer than I would have liked so we took all the kids down into the basement (the kids I work with, that is, not my own personal family.) Now the warning has been downgraded into a regular thunderstorm, so that's pretty easy to manage.

I just heard one of the girls cussing in the hallway so I have to do some therapeutic clinical intervention. Blogging over and out!

Yesterday was the first day that I didn't get around to blogging since I restarted this thing... four days ago. But I have a good reason. My dryer broke and I spent a good chunk of the day working on it. I had to replace a belt on a White-Westinghouse gas dryer that we purchased back in 1988. The belt snapped in the morning, and it was a fair amount of work just finding a place that was open and had a replacement belt that I could go pick up. The local appliance stores, Gerrits Appliance and Elders Electric, both closed by the time we got around to calling them. So Julie wound up talking to a woman in Mobile, Alabama who looked it up and informed us that the Sears store here in Grand Rapids had the belt that I was looking for.

So I rushed off to Sears, around 3:30 pm, and got the replacement belt. Only problem was that it looked a lot thinner than the one that had snapped and that I was replacing. The woman looked into the matter to see if some kind of shelf-stocking mistake had messed things up, but she eventually settled into an assured confidence that I had indeed the very belt that this dryer called for. So I went ahead and bought it after calling Julie on my daughter's borrowed T-Mobile cellphone and confirming that the broken belt and this new one both measured out to an 88" circumference. I figured that was the important thing, and that the actual width of the belt was of secondary significance.

Belt in hand, I returned home and set out to replace the belt. Considering that I had never before disassembled a dryer and was now about to re-assemble it, I think I did pretty well figuring some things out. But I ran into a problem when I had to figure out how to thread the new belt around the pulley wheels and adjust the tension bar so that the belt fit snugly around the drum. This turned out to be the most frustrating part of the whole process, and I wound up getting kind of short-tempered in the process. Julie and I exchanged a few sharp words but nothing too personal or hurtful. Just kind of snappy, you know? After a fair amount of experimenting to no avail on my part, she found a diagram in a book on dryer repair that she'd borrowed from the library and that wound up leading her to positioning the tension bar correctly and all worked out quite nicely after that. Except the dryer still squeaks and seems to run hotter than it ought to. Perhaps we have an insulation and lubrication problem?

Anyway, that took up several hours. Then I grilled some steaks, which turned out pretty well even though our coals on the grill didn't seem to catch fire very well. We wound up finishing up the steaks in our broiler, but despite all the fiddling around, they turned out quite tender and tasty, so no complaints there.

Then I had to turn in for the night earlier than everyone else because I had to work part of the overnight shift at Wedgwood due to a minor staffing shortage and a lack of on-call availability. I went in at 2:00 am, worked until 6:30 am, then went out this morning, helped my sons deliver the Sunday morning Grand Rapids Press, returned home shortly after 8:00 am, went to bed again, slept until 11:00 am, worked on my PoMoXian.com website, updating the library and email group pages, took a break to spend time with the family, read my New York Times, made pina coladas for Julie and myself, read a bit more of my current book Playing the Future by Douglas Rushkoff, saw that my fantasy baseball team was en route to a pretty big win, cementing my hold on first place in the division, and decided after all that to update my blog so that you, dear reader, would have a thorough impression of how I spent my day.

Now I'm going to stop writing and insert a bunch of hyperlinks in what I just wrote.

Last night, our family watched an old video I've owned for a few years, titled "Invaders From Mars." It's considered a classic and a pioneering effort in the sci-fi genre, the first color film of that sort ever made, so I've heard. It's an archetypal story, with primitive special effects and easy for us to laugh at in this hyper-digitized entertainment era, about a boy, David Maclean, who sees a flying saucer landing just beyond the hill behind his house in the pre-dawn hours of a stormy morning. He dutifully reports the odd phenomenon to his dad, who doesn't believe him, but goes out in the morning to investigate anyway. Dad returns hours later, after Mom has panicked and called the police, with a glazed expression and a surly attitude, smacking his son and snapping at his wife when they ask too many questions. Soon enough, David finds himself alone as his mother, the little girl next door, the police and other important citizens around town all begin showing the same flat affect. What they all have in common is that they've strayed a bit too close to the sand pit where David saw the flying saucer land... and ominous things begin happening around the town. It turns out the the poor citizens have been taken over by aliens who are intent on destroying an experimental rocket that presents a threat to their eventual plans to dominate the earth!

David finally finds assistance from a beautiful and caring social worker as well as a scientist and some military commanders who take his reports seriously. The confrontation reaches a critical point when the aliens (called "Mutants," pronounced "mute-ants") are discovered. Their leader is a disembodied silver head with squid-like limbs who lives in a fish bowl and only seems capable of expressing him(?)self by shifting his eyes from side to side. The effects used to portray these creatures are rather crude, but effectively striking and memorable as images. Their influence over many other such films remains obviously strong.

The ending is a puzzler, but I won't spoil it here. It kind of leaves one groaning but is quite entertaining nevertheless. My kids and I enjoyed it, but Julie found her Francine Rivers novel more interesting after awhile. I guess it was just too far out and/or corny for her...

My mind was all abuzz afterward, so I stayed up for another hour and watched Al Gore's speech on C-Span. Earlier in the day, he spoke to the staff and friends of MoveOn.org and gave what I considered an excellent summary of the reasons that George W. Bush's presidency ought to be considered a failure by the American people. I will probably post my comments on the speech to my "radical-middle" email list in the near future.

Today is the beginning of our annual "Celebrate Wyoming" festival. Wyoming, Michigan is the suburban city where I live, located on the southwest side of Grand Rapids. The city's website informs me that we are "Michigan's 16th largest community" which sends a modest surge of pride through my system as I reflect on how far the city has come since its incorporation in 1959 (just two years older than me!)

So to mark the occasion, the city put on a parade, and one of my sons, Curt, participated because he is a bass drummer in the Wyoming Park High School Marching Band. They just had the drum line out there today because we are still in prime vacation time and the band would be hard to get completely together under the circumstances. I enjoyed the drum line, and I would have even if my son wasn't in it. I like the rhythm. I dig the beat. It sure beats listening to fire truck sirens and semi-tractor claxon horns.

Speaking of the drum line, we watched that movie the other night, just after Curt returned from band camp. When I say "band camp" a lot of people I know immediately think of the American Pie movies which apparently have some kind of a running gag about "this one time at band camp..." but I never saw any of those movies even though they were written by a local talent (who's since relocated to L.A.) A clue to the story's origins is that it's set in the fictional town of "East Great Falls" which is a clever disguise for "East Grand Rapids," where the screenwriter, Adam Herz, grew up. The Grand Rapids Press recently featured a story on the reunion of the actual people who served as inspirations for the antics portrayed in the film, which largely involve teenage horniness and the consequences of their repressed and clumsily acted out desires. That story is no longer available in the archives, but this one is. This article is interesting because it emphasizes the "moral center" of the characters who are destined to "become better people" at the end, which I have no reason to doubt, but I know a lot of folks around Grand Rapids who would not find a whole lot of good to say about that movie or the so-called "innocence" that Herz claims characterizes their behavior. I just find it kind of amusing that this blockbuster movie franchise was born here in good ol' frumpy, slightly uptight western Michigan...

The Drum Line movie had an okay story but the drumming was good and the guys really know how to handle their sticks, I'll give 'em that much.

But it's gonna be a long time before we ever get a marching band with the kind of groove and swagger we saw in that movie. Mostly because of the characteristically plain, blue-collar, unhip, "family friendly" attitude and tastes that prevail around here. It's kind of a hokey environment, though the houses and neighborhoods are all pleasant enough. The word that my kids and I have used in the past is "rumpy-dump." Actually, the basis for our use of that word comes from a cartoon called "The Bashful Buzzard." Here are a couple of web pages dedicated to this delightful creation: "Beaky Buzzard!" and this one, which includes a .wav file where you can hear for yourself Beaky's incredible laugh. In the cartoon, Beaky sings a song, "I'm Bringing Home a Baby Bumble Bee" which if you kind of hum along with it will eventually lead you to connecting that song with the words "rumpy dump" or at least that's how it worked with me. So when I say that Wyoming, Michigan is "rumpy dump" it's not an insult or a put down at all, it's just a fond description of the town I live in and how it rates compared to livelier, trendier, more fashion conscious communities that I've lived in.

I have figured out a thing or two and am in the process of learning more about this blogger website. So I'm going to try and keep it going, and make it more interesting, rather than switch over to a new site and start from scratch.

Yesterday I took my family to Cedar Point amusement park in Sanduskey OH. It was a great trip - weather was just about perfect even though the forecasts called for rain and even thundershowers. Travel went smoothly there and back, and everyone got along really well - not one argument broke out the whole day, which isn't "unprecedented" but still, it's nice to note that everything proceeded smoothly.

The only glitch was that Cedar Point's big new ride, the "Top Thrill Dragster" wasn't in operation until the very end of the day, when we had already wrapped up our riding activities. This ride looks incredibly daring and audacious. It rises to a height of 420' and reaches speeds up to 120 mph as it pushes riders through a 200-foot freefall at pretty much a straight 90-degree angle. They are really pushing the limits with this machine, and obviously still working the bugs out. We were disappointed at not being able to have that experience, but we will be back next year and I imagine that Cedar Point will have found a new barrier to break through by then.

Even without the Dragster, we still had a blast on the other great coasters, such as the Magnum XL200, the Raptor, the Mantis, and the Wicked Twister, another new ride we hadn't taken before. The highlight of them all was the Millennium Force, which features a massive 300' drop, 90+ mph and some gloriously sweeping banked curves that are just so much fun to blaze through. For my boys, this was a new experience, and even the repeats are still a blast.

Here's a link to a picture of me and my boys on the Millennium. I'm sitting next to Derek, Brandon's wearing Atari, Curt is next to him.

Derek, my youngest son, was too short to go on the bigger rides when we were last here, so he probably enjoyed all this the most of any of us. Julie and Alyssa didn't do the Magnum (200 footer) or Millennium - they have their limits, but they went their own way and had a good time on some of less freaky rides.

Basically, it was just a fun family getaway. We stayed until the park closed, then decided to save some money and drive back home rather than spend $120 or whatever on a hotel room. We split the duties - I got us out of Ohio and back up on to I-96, the highway that gets us back to Grand Rapids, and she took over from there so I could give my eyes some rest. We don't want no falling asleep at the wheel to ruin a perfect day... So now we're back at home, Julie and I have the day off and are just enjoying a bit of free time rather than having to go to work. She's out watering the garden, I'm checking my email, and blogging of course, and we're all getting back in the groove after a very full day yesterday (up at 4 a.m., back home 25 hours later!)

Nothing particularly "pomoxian" about any of that, but it's just a day in my life, so that's what I have to say about it.