Saturday, 4:41 a.m.

Coooold this morning.

Yesterday absolutely wore me out. I ran my butt off all day long and by the end of the day, I looked back on it and had a hard time figuring out exactly what I'd accomplished, as half of the day's errands became moot by some information I received about one p.m. It was good news, but it made about fifteen hours of work during this past week utterly meaningless. Oh well, so it goes, sometimes. Hopefully the info I got will save me at least that much time during the next couple of weeks. -Trade-offs.

Last Sunday my friend Bo, who has his office in the same building where my shop and office are, came down to my office smiling and holding a couple of steaks that looked like they'd been cut from some humungous dinosaur. "I got us dinner!" he said, beaming. Honest, they were huge. Stupid large, actually. Alas, I had plans that evening. He said no problem; we could cook 'em up some time during the week. So, finally, yesterday in the late afternoon I grilled the the giant slabs on the tiny grill I keep here at the shop - they barely fit on the surface of the grill - and Bo and I sat down to make a stab at eating them.

I made it through about a third of mine and he gobbled down about half of his. I told him that if he ever bought this much red meat again for one meal, God would surely strike us dead, assuming our hearts don't revolt and burst first, saving God the trouble. -They were awfully tasty though. (Used some weird rub I picked up a few months ago... Mmmm.)

Anyway, tired, but sated beyond reason, I cut the rest of mine in two, freezing one portion, and then wrapped up the rest, plus half my baked potato and some peas, and took a plate over to the friend I'd house-sat for the last couple of nights. Her Dad finally did pass away Thursday evening around 9 p.m. and she'd just called to tell me she made it home. She sounded exhausted.

Tough few months for her. Maybe you remember me writing about her mom passing away just three or four months ago. Sometimes, it's true; when it rains, it pours.

So, I showed up at her house around seven, and reheated the dinner and served it up for her. I sat on the couch while she ate next to me and her rat-sized dog cuddled up between us, happy as a clam.

Next thing I remember? I woke up about an hour ago, still on the couch.

Great company, aren't I?

So, I'd planned on heading to Michigan in the morning, but my friend's Dad's funeral is scheduled for tomorrow at one p.m. with visitation starting at 11:00 a.m.

Come to think of it, Sunday funerals are unusual, aren't they? Seems so... Anyway, it just means I'll push back my schedule a bit and I'll head out either later in the day tomorrow, or early Monday morning. Hope the weather's decent.

Thought for the day: When at first you don't succeed? -wait a while before running out to find and alternative solution to your problem. You MAY find out that your first idea has legs after all!

Friday, 5:22 a.m.

Clear skies in Central Iowa, while, a few degrees below and to the left of the moon and shining brightly, Venus waves hello.

And every time I see Venus in the sky, I'm reminded of my first-born...

When my son was about eight years old, for a couple of years he loved to claim he was "of" Venus; a Venutian. (I have no idea how to spell that word correctly, assuming it IS a word.)

I don't remember the genesis of his claim, if I ever knew it. Maybe they were learning about the planets in school and he just liked the sound of it? -No idea. I do remember the many sketches he'd draw of the earth (sometimes with an X marking our house's location) as seen from "his true home." -Funny kid.

From the time he was ten, his bedroom was in the low-ceilinged basement; a rather dingy place no matter what we did in halfhearted attempts to make it nicer for him. We didn't go overboard because we knew we'd be adding on to the house in another year or two - which became about five, as life kept getting in the way - and we knew he'd have a nice new bedroom in the addition.

Of course, once we actually finished the project, Ryan refused to move. He'd grown to love his space down there and over the years took great care making it his own. In fact, he kept that weird little bedroom room 'til he was out of college. Then, after my ex and I divorced, he lived with me in a large apartment for a year, til he bought his own house.

Come to think if it, I have a feeling he could probably afford a much more expensive house than the one he now lives in, but I'll bet it would take a court order to get him to move. He's just that kind of guy. Once he's comfortable with something, he just stops thinking about that particular aspect of life and moves on with something else.

Probably has something to do with being from Venus.

Now, what was I planning to write about this morning?

Who knows.

Thought for the day: I love the idea of magic and I hate knowing there's no such thing, damn it.

Thursday, 6:24 a.m.

Clear skies, and another nice day ahead. Thick frost on my car right now, but it won't last once the sun pops. Yesterday it got up to 45 by around 11:00 a.m., just as I'd hoped, and today it's supposed to get another couple of degrees warmer yet, thank goodness.

I house-sat last night for a friend who had to go out of town unexpectedly and didn't want to leave her dog alone all night. She called me around eight to tell me her Dad isn't doing well and she and her daughter were just leaving to go see him. For her sake and her Dad's, I half-hope he goes sooner rather than later. He's been in a semi-coma for a while now and hasn't communicated with anyone for months. He's suffered from a strange form of severe dementia for a few years; one I'd never heard of before and can't remember the name of right this instant, but it's not Alzheimers. -Now, evidently, his body is shutting down too. Lousy deal.

Last night, while sitting here, I'd been thinking about the project for a while. Nothing unusual there since, predictably, it's been on my mind a lot for months. I'd been making some notes and sketching out bullet points for the web-site while intermittently playing "Words with Friends" with AC and fractalmom. Finally I'd had it. I said goodnight to AC in the little chatbox the game provides and closed up both the ipad and my laptop and put my feet up on the ottoman to crash half-sitting on the couch.

I felt very relaxed and had forced myself to stop thinking about both the project and the background issue that haunts my thoughts most of the time these days. I felt good. The Colbert Report was on the tube, but the volume was set low and I wasn't paying attention. I felt myself starting to drift off. My heart rate slowed, as did my breathing, and I remember reaching for the remote to turn off the...

All of a sudden, I lurched up, my eyes wide open. I sat there and let the idea that had come into my head unbidden fully form. -Probably took all of a couple of milliseconds. 

-What a cool feeling. 

Thought for the day: When we desperately need to figure something out? -Sometimes it's best to just shut down our minds. They keep working on their own anyway.

Wednesday, 5:53 a.m.

Beautiful outside this morning. Not very cold, and clear as can be, and it's supposed to get up in the forties today. I'll hope it crosses the forty-five degree mark with sunny skies; the point at which I'm usually able to work outside for a while. Keep your fingers crossed for me. I'd love to work outside today.

So, a little continuation from yesterday's post...

So there is one injection mold machine at the place in Earlham, Iowa that cranks out little clear plastic polypropylene tubes made for coin collectors. The mold has ten cavities in it and makes tubes for pennies (2), nickels (2), dimes (2), quarters (2), half-dollars (1) and one for dollar coins, though for which version of those I have no idea. There's another mold that makes the caps for these tubes, but it wasn't running at the time. It's a fully automatic machine that cycles every fifteen seconds or so. That means, four times a minute the mold pushes out a batch of these tubes, which then must be sorted into individual boxes, one for each type of tube. Little ejector pins force the just-made tubes out, so two steel arms can hoist the mold back into place to receive the next shot of molten plastic. -Pretty slick to watch, but it probably goes on in ten-thousand places all over the world at any given time. The basic technology behind injection molding is getting close to eighty years old by now. Still, I've always found it fascinating, and this machine gleamed with either newness or incredible upkeep, though the whole shop looked that way to me and it's been there since '85.

Only one aspect of the operation looked out of place, and perhaps because it looked kind of "made on the fly" and thus like something I could have possibly designed - it made me smile with its efficient simplicity.

At the end of each cycle, the machine brought the mold head over about two feet to the side of the frame, which is when the ejector pins kicked out the now-finished coin-tubes from of the mold, forcing them out of the block about six feet above the ground. There next to the machine sat a clone of the innocuous white plastic four-foot folding table at which I sit to write this very instant; $39.95 at Sam's Club or Costco.

C-clamped to the side of the table was a little L-shaped bracket about two feet high made of plain old pine 1"x12" and a 2"x4" angled brace. To that, ten 18" gray 1.5" PVC elbows, (of the sort we see in the plumbing isle of any Home Depot or Lowes for a couple of bucks each) had been zip-tied through little holes drilled in the 1"x"12" in what looked like a senseless bundle.

Though the tops of the elbows pointed straight up, each then angled out in various directions. On the table sat six cardboard boxes, with either one or two of the elbows carefully aimed at it.

As the mold ejected the coin-tubes, the little batch of PVC elbows was positioned so that each tube fell, (or flew, really, so great was the force of the ejectors), down through the elbows, then through the air for a foot or so and directly into the correct box.

It was so ingenious.

I'll bet the whole set-up didn't cost them fifty bucks - and yet, when I laughed upon seeing it, the fellow giving the tour explained that that very jig had been in use for over five years without a hitch.

And why had they fabricated it?

The person who'd been the "tube-sorter" didn't show up one day, (they've been making these coin-tubes for ten years now, and are on the third mold they've used for the job - molds wear out after a few million cycles...), and they didn't have anyone free to step in just then. Alas, they were behind in satisfying an order. So? -Viola. A cup of coffee, a pen and a piece of paper and a few minutes of brainstorming between this fellow giving me the tour and the shop foreman, and they came up with the idea. They put the thing together (as a temporary "fix") in a couple of hours.

He laughed. "We've had to replace the mold twice during the time we've had this contract, but in the last five years, we haven't even replaced a zip-tie on that sorter."

So the "quicky" temporary fix has become a fixture. I loved it.

So, I just went outside again for a second. Now it's cloudy... What the? "But," he whines, "that's not right! Yahoo weather says it's going to be sunny all dayyyyy."

Thought for the day: If you're going to hold your life together using something akin to zip-ties? -Get good ones.

Tuesday, 5:54 a.m.

Not bitter out, but far from balmy. Clear skies though. -A nice January morning.

So, yesterday at about noon I had to make a run twenty-three miles west of town. And, earlier in the day, that possible ice I worried over in my post had indeed materialized, and had certainly been an issue for all the drivers around here.

On the short trip from West Des Moines to Earlham, Iowa, I saw seven vehicles that at some point in the morning had slid far off the pavement - three of which had rolled and ended up on their sides or roofs.

And as I saw the last of them - and they were all within a five mile stretch - a big old Crown Vic keeled over on its side that was perpendicular to the roadway and straddling a little ditch a few feet from the shoulder, I realized that every one of them were models featuring rear-wheel drive.

Two pickups

Two Vans

A white Mustang

A Cadillac CTS

and the old Crown Vic...

That says something. I mean, when you consider that only a small percentage of the vehicles left being sold out there in the marketplace are rear-wheel drive, for all of the ones I saw off the road to be of that stripe? Hmm. Bet we soon start seeing a lot more front-wheel drive pickups and vans too.

Fun meeting with a small injection mold guy at a company in Earlham. If I can get agreement from the other guys, I'll give this company the okay to make a prototype mold to crank out a few thousand parts here in the next week or two. It's a small shop, as I said, but it's far more high-tech than we need. They have a mold shop as nice as any I've ever seen, complete with EDM capability and multiple CNC machines, and fifteen or twenty injection mold machines, almost all of which were cranking away making an interesting variety of items from doggy entry doors, to a very cleverly designed live trap for mice, to disposable "mouth-tips" for monitors to be installed in the cars of people who've had a DUI in Wisconsin - a booming little business for this outfit.

I'm only bringing up the products he pointed out that were easily recognizable, but since most of the parts being made were little doo-dads meant to be part of something else, and weren't identifiable in and of themselves, I have no idea about them.

However, there was one machine running making little clear plastic tubes for coin collectors that really caught my attention - and, by golly, I'm going to write about it tomorrow. 

Tune in then!

Thought for the day: Try not to use phrases like "by golly", or "gosh"...

(It makes you sound really old...)

Monday, 6:26 a.m.

Snow this morning. I was awake at around three and didn't see any evidence of it, but now, there's a couple of new inches out there. Pretty.

(See how I convince myself it's a good thing?)

Busy day ahead, compounded, no doubt, by the white stuff. -Hope people drive safely out there as the pavement was wet last night from rain, meaning there just might be a thin layer of ice beneath it all. Glad I don't have to do any long trips today. Might have to drive out to a place about twenty miles west of here if I get a call I'm half expecting, but that's as far as I'll have to go. Everything else is within ten miles.

My but this post is shaping up to be interesting, huh? "And then, maybe, I'll have to scratch my ear... Ya know, if it itches. And maybe my coffee will get cold and I'll want to nuke it..."

Geez. Sorry.

So... Newt? Really? Doesn't that sort of prove that their barrel is not only empty, but scum-lined and now needs a thorough scraping, hosing down, and some kind of bleach treatment? Yipes!

Every time I look at him I get a queasy feeling in my gut, like I'm looking at the slimiest of used car salesmen; one who knows exactly what to say in just about every situation, but you know damned well it's being said for one purpose and one purpose only; to get you that much closer to the close - (after which you'll have been too bamboozled to realize what you agreed to until it's way too late, and you find the extended warranty you bought for an extra 1500 bucks only covers models one year older, and one year newer than your car.)

Man, I KNOW guys like that. Every big store I've ever worked for has a couple of them, or has at one time. Eventually, they get found out and the smarter owners realize it's not worth it to have a staff with "hammers" on it. Why? -because nothing screws up the reputation of a car dealer faster than guys who oversell. And Newt? Wow. Slickest of the slick. He would be incredible!

Mark my words. Eloquent? -you bet. Fast on his feet? -the fastest. Soul-less?

Well, actions speak louder than words.

I sure hope they figure out an ethical way to get the "whys" out of what happened when he was ousted as speaker - ya know, if he's the nominee. Always struck me as weird. But? You have to give the guy credit. If he somehow wins the presidency, it'll make Nixon's comeback in '68 seem like small potatoes, won't it?

Thought for the day: Wear boots.

Sunday, 6:39 a.m.

A tad warmer this morning. Nice.

Yesterday was busy but a tad frustrating. Did something I dearly wanted to do early in the day for a half-hour or so, and then had a lengthy meeting from late morning 'til the middle of the afternoon. From two throughout the evening I did nothing I can point to as an accomplishment but I stayed fairly active til I got caught up playing the word game for a couple of hours. -Hard to concentrate on writing even now, but I managed to get a little done here and there yesterday.

I wish I liked my characters more. Something has happened to them over the past few months.  Feels like they're becoming as jaded as I feel I've become, and writing about them hasn't felt very satisfying. I miss feeling warmth in everything I do. Not sure how to get that feeling back. When love is missing from your life - or lest I speak too generally - from my life, it's more a matter of getting through the days as productively as you can, and working hard to find purpose in the flurry; whereas, when it's there, even washing a pan can feel like something special.

The guy working on the web-pages for the product and I are similar personality types and we've hit it off very well. Yesterday's meeting was at a place called, "Smokey Row"; an honest to goodness great coffeehouse - one of two good independents I've discovered here in Des Moines; both places that don't try to be clones of Starbucks, but instead are so far from the Starbucks model, that it's a joy to spend time in them.

We talked about our ideas for a good couple of hours and roughed out most of what we think is important. Because, in my mind, this product will end up having a bit of an "as seen on TV" quality to it, I don't want the web site looking to staid and benign, but neither do I want it to be over-the-top kitchy. So, since we'd discussed that previously, we'd agreed that we'd both spend some time visiting lots of other websites for products in the same category as ours, plus a bunch for other "as seen on TV" products, both to see what we thought might work for us, and to see the sort of things we wanted to avoid. Then, for yesterday's meeting, each of us brought distilled lists of links we could go over, and from that process, ended up sketching out what we want.  And? -we came away from the meeting with some good, solid ideas. Now I have a few assignments from him to work up some of the content, complete, of course, with as many SEO keywords as possible.

Once we tired of work, we ended up staying and shooting the bull for another hour. He reminds me of me about twenty years ago, with his kids still in the middle of growing up in a tight-knit family. He talked glowingly about his wife and children, and it made me respect him even more. He and his wife are real partners, it seems, and it made me smile to hear about it.

So, today, I don't have much on tap. I'll work out at the Y, then dinner with a friend later, and maybe a movie, but I don't have much I HAVE to do today, which is nice. -Maybe I'll even feel like writing later on.

Thought for the day, inspired by OS's latest post - and, in fact, he uses it. In Bull Durham, (one of my all-time favorite movies), Annie Savoy says, brilliantly: "The world is made for people who aren't cursed with self awareness."

Saturday 6:01 a.m.

Nine degrees (F) out there this morning. Crazy cold, though last night I heard we might go below zero for a while today. Fun, fun, fun!

So, my quandary. There is one aspect of our little product for which I counted on a very good adhesive. Now, for anyone with the tiniest bit of knowledge about adhesives and plastics, we all know that getting adhesives to stick to plastics is always fun; hence sonic welding and the like. -Better to melt things together when possible. Alas, here it isn't, and so I did extensive testing trying to find one that would work for adhering small strips of stiff urethane foam to UHMW; about the most durable and slipperiest of all polyethylenes, and the core of our product. Finally, I'd found one, and it worked great, even in the coldest of temperatures.

Ah, but, evidently, not so great in excessive heat. When the product is left in a place where the heat can build up in the plastic - even if the room temp isn't so great, the adhesive wants to go back to goo and releases its hold. F*%k! At about 130 degrees (F), it's a problem, and since closed-up cars, for instance, can get much hotter than that in the summer, and the plastic retains heat and it can build up to beyond the temp of the surrounding air? It won't work. Terribly annoying since I really didn't concern myself with that issue - making me feel stupid - since my issues with adhesives (and I work with them every single day in my job) has always been a problem with having them keep their hold in cold temps - AND since the data sheet claimed it to be good up to 220 degrees (F).

Nevertheless, it means having another part injection molded we were hoping to avoid spending the money on. Oh, it's the way I designed it from the get-go, but we were really hopeful that our substitute solution would do the job. And, alas, it does - unless and until the sun shines brightly; which, damn it, it tends to do.

So? Yesterday I sent out quote requests for this part. Got two back already, both within a few dollars of each other and only about five percent more than I expected them to be. We can get it done for half if we have it done in China, but we were really hoping to claim the "Made in the U.S." thing, since it seems to matter to a lot of U.S. consumers. 

I'm terribly annoyed with not only the extra work and money, but with myself for making this colossal blunder. This was no one's mistake but mine, and I'm ashamed of myself for being so stupid.

But? -Onward and upward. It will be a better product with the originally designed part, so that's okay, I guess.

Thought for the day: Ain't life grand?

Friday, 6:12 a.m.

Still pretty darn cold around here, almost like it's January in Iowa or something. Maybe being spoiled there for a few weeks wasn't such a great thing. I find myself half-hoping for a another respite that doesn't look to be forthcoming.

Man oh man, I'm sick of the Republican candidates. I wish one of them struck me as a real human being. Every last one of them strikes me as an animatronic version of what they purport themselves to be. (And here I was going to go into robot-like quotes from each of them... Nah. Pointless...)

Early yesterday morning, as one of my partners - the money guy - was leaving for Arizona, he discovered a potential design flaw in our product. He'd taken a couple of prototypes with him to show his daughter and a cousin of his who's in the Pet supplies business. He called me right away to describe what had happened and I spent the better part of the day trying to duplicate the issue here in the secret lab, (ya know, my shop...), but I was unable to get the latest version to show the same problem he described. 

Unfortunately, (a.) I don't know which version of the prototypes he took with him, although I know it wasn't the very latest and greatest - since they're all still here, and (b.) what the hell? (-which is what I kept asking myself all day long...) I'm not overly concerned, but neither am I, uh, underly concerned.

-Yes, AC and Dawn, I know, I know. I wouldn't be able to use "underly" in Words With Friends. Tough!

I have a whole bunch of regular work to do today and I'm not into it even a little. Oh well. Can't have everything, can we?

Suppose I ought to get to it.

Thought for the day: WTF?

Wednesday, 6:02 a.m.

Cold morning here. Windy out there with thin clouds and biting temps.

Time to start fabricating the project product... Or at least one of the parts of it. 

Got the first of the big batch of materials in yesterday, and I spent last night making a little fixture to marry 4' strips of very stiff, yet still flexible, foam to each other in a "T" fashion, (then played with it, "testing", for a while.)

The fixture - or I guess it's really just a jig - seems to work great. Once the T's are made, I just run them through horizontally on the band saw with a fence set at 2" so I end up with 24 pieces from each married length. I did figure out that I can easily stack three of the T's next to each other in a lengthy puzzle piece even after they're formed, so with each pass through the blade I make three of the little doohickeys. Fun! Since the stuff cuts like butter, it took me under two minutes to cut seventy-two finished little foam pieces.

Even though I don't think I could ever stand to work in a factory setting for any length of time, (at least without pulling my hair out after a week or two...), I think I'll have fun setting up all the little operations.

There are seven steps involved, including packaging, and while, individually, only one will take more than a minute - with a couple taking only a few seconds - it seems to me that we're likely to have between five and seven minutes in each finished unit. -At least for a while.

The predicament is, that if we're to be successful in the least, we need to sell a few thousand of these things a month. As such, it strikes me that we're going to have to find another way to do things sooner, rather than later. Either that, or really ramp up our costs to mechanize. -And there's the rub. Can't responsibly make that sort of decision 'til we really test-market in earnest, right? -But... If it sells well - and it seems like it just might - then we have another huge production lag while we tool up; a predicament. I mean, if there's truth to the "strike while the iron is hot" thing, you damned well better at least have the fire roaring to keep the metal hot while you work it. (And here we'll stop with the blacksmith analogy...)

So, within the next week, all the initial matierials will be here and we can have product ready the very day the last of them arrive, since there's nothing to do with that last of the parts we expect to receive except include them with the product. It's a little mini-boomerang shaped piece we're having made in Minnesota that's really the key to the design, but since all it does is slide on, there's nothing we have to do at that point.

Now... I'm still not happy with the way we cut the six little keyhole shaped slots in the ends of the belts. Right now the little fixture I designed for that operation looks like something out of a Rube Goldberg machine, and I'm not very proud of it. There MUST be a better way. Today's challenge? Figure that one out.

Thought for the day: Let the cool clear waters of inspiration wash over me and leave me clean and refreshed - and with a better idea in hand.

Monday, 8:13 a.m.

This is an incredibly beautiful January morning. I'm sitting on the glider writing this. Yes, I have some of those "texting gloves" on, which does seem to allow for pretty decent use of a keyboard while still keeping one's fingers warm, but other than that and a hood pulled up over my head, I'm not over-bundled. It's just awfully nice for this time of year. Just watched the sunrise behind horizontal clouds of varying shades of white and gray that made for a nice show, as pinks and yellows glowed through at the edges. My oh my, twas nice.

I decided on oatmeal and a banana for breakfast, and ate that out here as well. Now, my third cup of coffee and a few minutes to write this, and then I'll start the day in earnest.

A couple of months ago - if that long - I got a friend request on facebook from someone I didn't know. As is my habit in such cases, I messaged her and asked if, in fact, we did know each other and it was in some way that caused me not to recognize her name. -A fellow blogger I only knew by a handle, perhaps? She sent me a message back to say that no, we'd never spoken, but that she had been a long-time reader of this blog, and had, by some clever detective work, figured out my name. When she saw that I used the same pic on my facebook page that I use here - the guy hugging the tiger - she figured she must have the right person and so made the request. We live very close to each other, which is what prompted her actions. Since then, we've sent a few messages back and forth. She's a single mother and a professional woman with a job you couldn't pay me enough to tackle, and is a very strong and kind person.

Her kids are all very involved in sports and she says most of the family's free time - what little there is - is spent running to and from practices and games.

Last week, one of her girls' friends and teammates died of a very fast-acting cancer. The experience, of course, was wrenching for everyone who knew the girl. I thought about writing about it then, but to be frank, I didn't have a clue what to say. The upside - if there is one - was that the girl was loved by many, many people, and had lots of support throughout the ordeal. And, as is the case, whenever someone dies, it's those left behind we worry about.

Still? Nothing is sadder to me than deaths that occur far too soon, and when it happens that a young person is taken, despite faith - which is always tested in such instances - it is all that much harder.

I sent a short message saying that I'd have traded places with the girl if I could.

I meant it.

Thought for the day: Yes, "life is short", but sometimes, that doesn't say it nearly strongly enough.

Sunday, 3:05 p.m.

Beautiful afternoon in West Des Moines. Sunshine and mild temps. Weather-wise, one can't ask more more in the middle of January, and it's supposed to remain nice for the next couple of days.

Been putting up a couple of shelves and transferring a few things from one room to another. Went for a walk around the lake earlier and have dinner plans in a while. Haven't gotten involved in the NFL playoffs this year, but I did hear that the Broncos got wasted by the Pats yesterday. Does that mean Jesus stopped caring about Tim Tebow for the year? Hope not. (Snore.)

Nothing bugs me more than showy praying. I have a feeling Jesus would deliberately ignore requests from athletes and/or entertainers who make a spectacle of their faith - or I hope he would.

Far be it from me to quote scripture, but since these same folks LOVE to do it, how about Matthew 6:6, and from the NIV, no less, the "in" translation for many big-time born-agains. "But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."

Would the reverse be true too? If you pray publicly like a carnival huckster, will you be ignored? Gee, (he thinks uncharitably), I hope so. -And understand I begrudge Mr. Tebow nothing. I hope he has a long and successful career. It's just that I'll root for him a hell of a lot more if and when he stops with the theatrics.

Meanwhile, my head is still a jumble. Nothing to be done about that, I guess.

Thought for the day: From "Starship Troopers" by Yes...

"Loneliness is a power that we possess to give - or take away - forever."

Friday, 6:59 p.m.

An incredibly busy couple of days since I returned from Grand Rapids, and yet I've done very little "regular work". -All stuff for the project. Thank goodness Tuesday and Wednesday in Michigan were productive, so the week has been okay, but it has felt weird; like I'm on a vacation from one job and working another.

So here is is, Friday night, and I have no desire to do anything fun. I was supposed to do something with a friend but, already feeling tired, I canceled early in the day. Feel like relaxing and watching a movie - which is exactly what I think I'll do. -Exciting surrogate.

Ya know, I never felt "old"... ever. In fact, until a few weeks ago I've always felt incredibly young. I've never felt any different than I did when I was eighteen. But when, half in jest, (but only half I think), someone told me I'm really just an old fart, the words really hit home. All of a sudden - as I've mentioned in posts more than once since then - my energy level has dwindled significantly and I've begun to feel my age. Maybe being told that, especially by the person who said it, has gotten into my head.

I hate it, and on some weird level, it's made me incredibly sad.

Things I've discovered during the last few days:

• If, along the way on a five-hundred mile trip, you stop at a gas station to fill up and use the john, and for some silly reason you decide to fill the gas tank first, the greater the amount of pressure on your bladder? -the slower the pump will be.

• If, during that same stop, you order a Steak'n'Shake burger with extra onions and no pickles, check it before you get back on the highway, because it's very likely to have no onions and a hell of a lot of pickles - which, I must say, still tasted pretty good, once I got over feeling annoyed...

• If you're talking to a web designer who, before even asking you what it is you need from them, asks you what the budget is? -tell them you have another call, thank them, and cross their name off the list of "possibles".

• If you're talking to a web designer who asks all the right questions and seems excited about the possibilities, and says he'd like to work up a few ideas and come give a short presentation before even talking about money at all? Let him; especially if he says that if we end up deciding his services are beyond our means, we're still welcome to use any of the ideas he's cooked up on our behalf. -And if he says, "I hope we can come to an agreement, because this really sounds like a fun project," and you can tell he means it? Go ahead and talk him up to the other partners.

• If you're playing in the "wintertime Friday afternoon at 4:00 one-hour quarter-ante poker game" and, (including two wild cards) your first five cards give you a Royal Flush? -Drag the other players along slowly; really milk it! (I did, and man was it fun; a ten dollar pot!)

Thought for the day: There are three ways to deal with adversity. And someday? -I plan to learn what they are.

So, I'd like to talk about dear AuntConi a minute. For those of you who don't understand our relationship, she has become, over the years, one of my closest friends. And? When I go to Michigan once every few weeks, I almost always stay with her one or two nights. She often used to come up to my place before I finally moved to Des Moines, and often cat-sat Roadie for me, but since SL and I broke up, she hasn't been back out to Des Moines again yet. Perhaps in the Spring.

We really met because of tblog.

At the time, both of us used to play Literati quite a bit (a yahoo version of Scrabble) as did Almsthvn, who was already a friend. She knew AuntConi and realized we lived in the same town and that we both liked the dumb game and so encouraged us to get to know each other. About five years ago - maybe six, by now - she put us in touch, and the rest is history. We both lived in the greater Grand Rapids, Michigan area, and though she lived (lives) at the very south end, and I lived way up in the northeast, soon we became close. She's a wonderfully kind and giving woman whom I love dearly and? -who has the ability to drive me bonkers.

Last night, as we sat in opposing recliners; me toying with my ipad and her fidgeting with her laptop after we got back from meeting Dot and Terry for dinner, I took notice of her "setup"...

Okay, now first, remember AC is about a year older than my mom and therefore, as the matriarch of her own home, completely entitled to her little... what? Idiosyncrasies? I guess... But please...

First? -the ubiquitous house dress, sweater and robe. Always. Then? -Seventeen pillows arranged just so all around her and propped under her laptop desk, with another fifteen or twenty tossed here and there - for style, I assume. Then, not one, but two lights just over her shoulder. She chooses one or the other based on some scientific formula to which I'm not privy to aid, along with one of three dozen pairs of reading glasses, her ability to read what's on her computer's screen. The side snack table next to her recliner often holds a cup of coffee, or a flat diet coke (yes, she prefers to let it get flat) along with some little goodie, just on case her appetite comes calling, (though I've seen even a couple of Oreos sit there for hours before she get's the urge to scarf one down.)

She is a picture, and her smile is so wonderful it can melt one's heart; but don't let it. Turn away. (Remember, she is at that very moment trying to kick your ass in "Words with Friends"; the newer, more stylish - and evidently Alec Baldwin endorsed - Scrabble-style game from Facebook and Zynga.)

She is, in short, lovingly evil.

-And I'm eternally thankful she's part of my life.


Thursday, 5:28 a.m.

Back in Des Moines. Left Michigan around one, with the temps hovering around 55 degrees, and arrived back here about ten last night to blowing, drifting snow and honest-to-God Winter temps.

Oh well.

Monday, 5:50 a.m. Michigan time...

Nice drive here yesterday, if tiring - or it must have been, since I fell asleep before 8:30 p.m. and just woke up a little while ago. (Thanks AC. Sorry I was a lousy conversationalist last night.)

A few minor car repairs on tap while I'm here, and it looks like a couple of nice days of work ahead - weather-wise anyway. Really don't have a clue how much work there is since I never got around to calling "my people" over here before I left. Oh well, there will be what there will be. If it's slow, it'll allow me to take care of a couple of things I've wanted to do for a while, but for which I've never found the time, and if it's busy, they can remain on the back burner, since - obviously - none are truly pressing.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been doing some extensive work in my shop to get it ready for assembling and shipping our little project product. As a result, two things have happened. First, other than making a few jigs we'll fabricate once we see how the parts arrive to us, the shop is ready, which makes me feel good. It's never been so well organized and spotless, and second, (and I assume this is just from spending so damn much time on the concrete floors there), the bottom of my feet became tired and sore. As such, I haven't walked much in days. I finally finished - along with help from one of the partners - this past Thursday, and, other than regular work, since then I've tried to rest my feet a bit - which seems to have worked. This morning, they're pain-free and I look forward to a nice evening stroll tonight.

As part of the organization, I built a new room there, which allows me to separate a couple of functions that have long needed separation, and the "saw room" - where all the major woodworking tools are set-up; the only room where sawdust is allowed to fly a bit, (which it does, despite a decent dust collection system) - has been sealed off more thoroughly; something I should have done a long time ago.

There have been more than a few times I've thought about doing little spur-of-the-moment woodworking projects; things that would take me an hour or less; that I've decided against, simply because the cleanup would take me longer than the project itself. And the cleanup, which, unless I want the whole shop to remain dusty, is - or has been - required every damned time I get to using the big stuff. Hopefully, with this better seal, that won't be as much of an issue now.

Time will tell.

-Another exciting post... Man, I AM a boring old fart.

Thought for the day: Why is it, with everything in my life, this "Time will tell" thing, comes into play? Class? Class? Bueller?

-Discuss.

Saturday, 4:54 a.m.

Clear, cold and decidedly January out there this morning. The last few days have been a respite from winter, but it looks like we're starting the slide back to normalcy today. Oh well. Maybe it's a good thing. Yesterday, the talk for an hour and a half on Iowa Public Radio was about how this weird warm streak is affecting plants and insects; some of them being fooled out of hibernation. Even five-hundred miles further east in Michigan, AuntConi told me yesterday on the phone that one of her outdoor flowering plants was blooming. Weird.

I woke up very early and, as has become my custom when I do so, I scanned some of the obscure documentaries available on Hulu Plus. Sometimes, or  usually, really, this helps me chuckle myself awake with some of the strangeness I find there. -Watched a very interesting one a few weeks ago from the sixties about Bible Salesmen. My, but by and large, they were a crooked lot. (Surprise, surprise...)

Rarely do I sit through an entire movie, but I can usually get the gist of whatever the filmmaker is attempting to say in twenty or thirty minutes worth of footage and, since it's only background while I get myself ready for the day, I don't really pay all that much attention, but it's usually fun.

So? That's how I started my day  today. This morning's fare was a documentary on... Air Hockey.

Yes. -An entire documentary on the "sport" and those who play it; how it was invented; the aging bunch of guys who have attempted to keep it alive and revitalize it in recent years - and so on.

The film centers on a guy named Mark Robbins who has loved loved Air hockey since 1973 when Brunswick began distributing their tables in earnest for inclusion in coin-op arcades and the like. Now, some 38 years later, he's still a majordomo in the tiny world and, as I just found out at the very end of the film - and yes, I admit it; I watched the whole damned thing - he just bought a Michigan Company that makes Air Hockey tables, as well as some other coin-op and home use amusement equipment, as perhaps the final step in his quest to produce an Air Hockey table at least as good as the old Brunswick models; (models that Brunswick themselves gave up manufacturing back in 1978 after just five years of production in the face of the newer and flashier arcade video games that were just then becoming huge.) Mr. Robbin's dream is for Air Hockey to become what he's always felt it should have been; a much bigger thing in the world.

Here's hoping he's successful - if for no other reason than that I'm a person who always loves to see true passion rewarded - assuming it's a passion that doesn't involve anything nefarious.

While the documentary did get a tad tedious, and I found it a little hard to get as emotional about the tournament rivalries and interpersonal relationships between some of the long time competitors and proponents of the game as those who have been part of it for all these years, it was still worth watching. In fact, if you ever have and hour and twenty-one minutes you need to kill, give it a whirl. It's called "The Way of the Puck." 

I know... Even the title kind of screams, "Nerd", doesn't it?

Thought for the day: Be the best you can be - but maybe do so for it's own sake - and without joining the Army.

Thursday, 5:50 p.m.

Tough day. Great day, work-wise, with incredible weather that actually had me sweating a little while working outside this afternoon, and in January, no less - but a tiny thing happened late this morning that messed with my head the rest of the day, and? -I can't even write about it - which sucks.

I am a weak-brained mofo; that's all there is to it. Unfortunately, my heart is no stronger than my head. Oh it beats just fine, but the "heart" part of my heart is not in great shape, and when it received another jolt from the cosmic paddles today, whether imagined or not, the aforementioned head just didn't process it well.

So it goes. -Nothing to be done but muddle on. Just tired of feeling like life is mostly "muddle" these days.

On a bright note, I just received a cool and very thoughtful gift in the mail from my son. He's been spending time digitizing all our old family photos, and he sent me a CD that covers 1979-1987. He sent it inside a nice new cover for my iPad. Alas, I've decided not to look at them tonight. As kind a gesture as it was, I'm afraid it'd be too much for me to deal with right now. Just can't take any more reminders of my failures today.

Boy, this is an uplifting post, huh?

Sorry.

Maybe I'm just overtired. Here it is, just early evening, and I'm thinking a nap sounds damned good.

Thought for the night: Rest is no vice.

Wednesday, 5:23 p.m.

Wow. It's been a beautiful day. -Cool-ish, but I was able to work outside during the afternoon, and I'm pretty sure I'll be able to do so again tomorrow and Friday; extremely unusual for January.

I complained to one of the sales guys who often comes to wherever I'm doing my thing and watches me work, (though I suspect it's mostly so we can yap a little; selling cars can be a boring job unless and until you're actually dealing with a customer - or I've always assumed it must be.) "It's a little cold for April," I said. For a minute, he looked at me like I was crazy - 'til he got my lame joke.

Roadie has gone into one of her clingy periods. The minute she sees me she wants to sit on my lap or, if I'm standing, she insists on rubbing up against my legs. I don't mind this when I'm not doing anything - and in fact, I love it  - but she can be a bit much when there's stuff to do. So, just now, as I sat down to write this, she jumped up on my lap - which wouldn't be so bad, but she hates when I type. Roadie feels I ought give her all my attention any time she damned well desires it, and so she wedges her head between my fingers and the keys. I put up with it for a minute or two, but then I gently placed her back on the ground and suffered the thirty seconds of contempt her face showed - 'til she understood it wasn't going to do any good and walked away.

I can be cruel.

Great meeting with the mold maker this morning. All parts are in the pipeline and we should have completely salable product within a month; six weeks at the outside. I'll be working on the website over the next few weeks and working with the money guy to make sure all our ducks are in a row as far as the legal stuff goes. We now have over a hundred units pre-sold and the names and email addresses of a couple of hundred more who got glimses of the prototypes and wanted pricing info and the like once we figured it all out. Right now, it looks like we'll be able to meet the "$29.99" price we'd hoped to be able to sell the units for, with the price going down as time goes on and our production capabilities increase. We're using my shop as the "production facility" - at least for a little while, though if we're to be the least bit successful, we won't be able to use this small a space for more than a few months. We don't think we'll be able to do more than about forty units a day here, and frankly, if that's all we sell, it won't be worth staying with the idea very long. On the other hand, it won't take much to ramp things up, so? Time will tell - as I've been saying for many long months. The cool part is that the time for seeing if our idea has at least some legs is growing shorter and shorter - nice.

Thought for the day: Be nice to the kitty, ya jerk.

Tuesday, 3:49 a.m.

Cold morning here with a high of about 41 later. After today, the week gets warmer and warmer through Saturday with highs around 53 Thursday and Friday. Nice!

Today would have been my Dad's 74th birthday - or I think that's right; he was born in '38. Can't tell you how many times over the past ten years since his death I've wanted to talk to him. Seems like he died at just about the time I finally had the maturity to realize that making use of his experience and wisdom wasn't a sign of weakness, but one of... well, I don't know what it was a sign of, but in any case, there've been many times during the past decade I sure could have used his take on things.

We never saw eye to eye business-wise, and I don't think we ever would have; he was - (dare I say it? -sure) - a bit of a prima donna about his craft, and never seemed to appreciate that his work, (and mine, for that matter), while good, is not so very much better than that of anyone else competent in our trade. Other than that, though, (the "business thing"), we weren't so very different in the way we looked at the world. But he had a certain knack for sussing out situations that I never fully grasped; taking brief glances, then quickly stepping back in order to think things through a bit before making decisions about what to do.

It struck me as uncanny, really. He just never seemed to screw up on a big decision, and along the way, he faced a lot of tough ones.

So, for about ten years, I made a real effort to learn from him and he became a good sounding board for me, if and when I found myself facing tough decisions of my own. Whats more, he seemed to appreciate that I'd come to him for advice - something I hadn't done for twenty years or so during my "young adult years" - between the time I was about fifteen and thirty-five.

Those last ten years of his life, though, were special as we became close again and spent a lot more time together.

Since he died, of course, I've regretted not spending more time with him all along the way.

Oh well. I've probably written ten posts about my Dad during the seven years I've been boring people with this blog. One more just might be the tipping point, so I'd better stop.

I was just thinking, I never write much about my Mom! Ah.... But that's because, (being very much alive, (well, and ornery)), she reads this crap from time to time. Therefore I dare not say something to upset her and, in the process, find I've been cut off from the world's tastiest cheesecake!

-After all, some risks are just not worth taking, right?

Right. In fact...

Thought for the day: Some risks are just not worth taking.

Sunday, 7:22 a.m. - 1-1-12

Happy New Year people!

Just now, in typing the date there just above, was the first time I've written "12" as the year. I'm determined not screw up any invoices, checks, or anything else this year by typing the incorrect year until about March as I have done so many times in the past. Time will tell.

Resolutions:

• I will not allow myself to be used by inconsiderate people this year. When I do something for someone, unless it was something I wanted to do anyway, I will make sure to be compensated for it, if not monetarily, then at least by appreciation.

• I will not deal with people who are not completely straight with me, and if I find I have? -The interaction will cease at that instant.

• I will not allow myself to trust people who tell me they are one thing but act as if they are another. Coldness will be met with coldness, and warmth with warmth. In my opinion, which has taken long years to form, people who are willing to take and take and give nothing in return, are simply not worth my time and energy; and certainly not worth any emotional involvement.

Now, I suppose these sound like downers, as far a New Years resolutions go, but for me, and the person I've allowed myself to become, I'm thinking they can have nothing but positive effects, considering how I've allowed not having had them in my "personal repertoire" to affect me.

I've been reading up on a sub-category of the national narcissism epidemic - something that concerns me greatly - called, "compensatory narcissism". It jumped out at me like a rubber-hatchet-wielding goon in a Halloween Haunted House. The causes and the way it manifests itself in certain people were absolutely startling to me. And, after reading through the seventeen agreed-upon symptoms - of which only ten are required for a clinical diagnosis - and realizing I'd seen thirteen of those seventeen exhibited time after time in the very person who kindled my interest in the subject? Zowie. -Interesting as hell.

One of the main symptoms of the disorder is that people who suffer from it have a far greater need for people to believe everything they say than they do to actually be forthright and honest. Since they are hypersensitive to criticism and usually highly manipulative, after a while - and in just about all long-term intimate relationships they form - they hear everything as criticism, which then can be used as justification for further dishonesty. It's spooky really - like circular self-fulfilling from of non-logic. And since they see themselves as "stars" in their own mind, (as opposed to "regular people"), they need to be seen as "the best" at everything they do; the center of attention; but are rarely consistent in their own efforts in anything they do - especially over a long-ish period of time. And? Because of their sense of entitlement, they have no problem justifying bad behavior. Sleep with the husband or wife of a friend? So? It was just sex. Help your kids lie to the other parent? So? He or she is a jerk and deserves no better. It's an awful thing, and the only cure? -A long hard look in the mirror and admission that the problem exists - and a decision to change. According to what I've read? -Doesn't happen often. As for dealing with such people, especially when you care about them? Ah... now there's the question.

Again. Happy New Year.

Thought for the day. 2012! 2012! 2012! (Don't forget!)

Friday, 5:09 a.m.

Nice morning. Rain overnight, but it's stopped now and it's supposed to be a beautiful day. We're expected to see temps of near 60 degrees tomorrow, which would be a record for the last day of the year in Iowa, or it would be according to one of the guys I talked to yesterday who pays attention to such things.

My last couple of days have been extremely busy with both work and a couple of other "agenda items". One has brought some satisfaction and has lifted my spirits, while the other has been both eyeopening and disheartening, and has caused me some emotional pain. But? I am to concentrate on the former, right? -and let the latter go. After all, they say, this too shall pass. All I know is, cliche or not, actions speak louder than words.

Ya know... Reminds me of a little ditty I wrote many years ago, inspired by my dealings with someone whom I felt had let me - and all those around him - down in a major way. I may have posted it before but if I did it would have been four or five years ago, the last time I felt this way about a situation. In any case, for reasons I won't bother recounting, I know for a fact I wrote this New Years Day in 1980. It is my truly my greatest poetic effort to date and I am truly proud of it. Please, don't all applaud at once. My ears are sensitive - and it could become deafening...

"People should do what they say they will do

-or keep their mouths shut from the start.

'Cuz a promise that's made, but then, sadly, not kept

-is like a shit that's, really, all fart"

Okay, okay - so those last two lines I adapted from another little work of genius I'd seen on displayed on public bathroom walls. Hey! -don't accuse me of stealing. It's not like I tried to copyright and sell it... You got it free!

Thought for the day: Just shake your head and smile...

Tuesday, 5:32 a.m.

Well, you'd think you couldn't go anywhere in Iowa - and especially Des Moines - this week without stumbling across a stray Republican Presidential candidate, and maybe it's true. So far, though, I haven't seen one. On the other hand, I certainly haven't gone out of my way to become a trip hazard for any of them.

Still, they're all here this week, drumming up support and glad-handing their way through countless fundraisers and campaign stops in anticipation of next weeks Iowa Republican caucus. According to the buzz, and the news broadcasts around here, they're ants at a picnic; seemingly everywhere, and all the time.

A guy who worked in my building until last April when he went to work for Michelle Bachman, (and since then, Herman Cain, and he now works full-time for the Gingrich campaign), has seemed very excited every time he's stopped by to see his old boss and former coworkers, which he does every week or two. For the first couple of years of its existence, he was not only a founding member, but also the titular head of Iowa's initial version of the Tea Party, and evidently made quite a name for himself on many of the uber-conservative call-in radio shows, both local and national, and with an internet site he ran that evidently became popular with, "like-minded", people. (-And I use the term "like-minded" out of a spirit of generosity; I considered using, "non-thinking", which may have been a tad more accurate...)

He's a nice enough guy, but to listen to him talk for any length of time is something I just can't do. First of all, he's a blatant racist - something that's not surprising, but something that's still completely unacceptable to my sensibilities - and perhaps even more importantly, he really doesn't seem to have any sort of grasp on reality circa 2011. When he talks about "making this country great again", it always sounds to me like the only way to get that done to his satisfaction - and in a way that meets his definition of "greatness" - would be to deport everyone who isn't a white born-again protestant of at least moderate means; an idea, I have an inclination he'd support enthusiastically, ya know, once he thought about it for a half-second or so...

Personally, as time has passed, it has become harder and harder for me not to simply walk away when he comes in, if I happen to be up in the front of the building at the time. He was a regular in our wintertime Friday afternoon quarter poker games last year, but he's only showed up once since we started up again about six weeks ago (marking the end of the golf season) and when, in answer to a question about how things are going for the campaign, (he was still with Herman Cain then), he launched into a full-fledged rant? -I finished the hand, and excused myself with a white lie about having to be somewhere else.

Well, actually, now that I think about it, it wasn't a lie at all. I DID have to be somewhere else just then. It's just that it wasn't anywhere specific. Anywhere else on the planet would have done nicely just then. -Just had to get myself out of that room before I said something I shouldn't have - or, if I'm being completely honest, something that very well SHOULD have been said but, alas, I lacked the required guts to say it.

Oh well.

(Oh, by the way... How, I hear you ask, if this man a racist as I claim, did he manage to work for the Cain Campaign? Well, here's the quote - verbatim. "Herman is the whitest n*&&$# I've ever met. He thinks just like a white man!")

Thought for the day: In the end, all we can do is, in fact, all we can do...

Monday, 6:12 a.m.

As cold a morning as I remember so far this year, or at least it feels like it. Still? -Haven't see a cloud or evidence of one in three days, so no snow around here - for which I'm thankful.

Really enjoyed watching 60 minutes last night. It was an amazing show. Just two segments. The first was a short tour of the Vatican Library that was so incredibly interesting, I didn't want it to end. Love it or hate it, the Roman Catholic Church, as the oldest and founding Christian religion, has over the years made quite a job of preserving artifacts and books, (over two million of them stored on shelves that if placed end to end would be over thirty-one miles long); they've turned the responsibility into an extremely serious endeavor for almost two thousand years.

And it's not like the library is all Roman Catholic fare, or that it includes just Christian texts. It includes everything from - well, it includes just about everything they can get - and, since they can get just about anything and everything? -They do.

Alas, the library is off limits to the general public and open only to true scholars; though, after seeing just that glimpse, it makes perfect sense they wouldn't want people like me in there, carelessly creasing spines and marking my place by folding over the corners of pages. No, not when you consider that many of these books are many hundreds of years old and many more well over a thousand.

I really enjoyed the snippet they included of the restoration department. Those people look to have jobs that would drive the likes of me up a tree. In my job, if I screw up? I can remove my error and do it again, and can repeat the process as many times as it takes 'til I get it right. Not so if you're charged, for instance, with repairing a note written by Michelangelo himself. You screw that up, and it's gone forever. -I mean, it's not like we can drop by his house for coffee and, as an aside, ask him to copy it over for us. -Really something.

The one person allowed to check out books from the Vatican Library? Yep. The Pope. Wonder if he's partial to old Hardy Boys Mysteries, or maybe American Self Help titles?...

"Excuse me, my son? Do you have a minute?"

"Yes, oh my! (gulp) What may I get you, Holy Father? How may I be of service, your Pontiff-ness?"

'Yeah, yeah, get up. Do we have that old Wayne Dyer? "Pulling Your Own Strings"?"

The second segment was a halfway thorough look - well, thorough for 60 minutes, anyway; they took a commercial break in the middle of the segment - into the eight hundred-year-old Mount Athos monastery in Greece where the monks are still celebrating mass with the same words used - or at least they claim it to be so - that were used at the time of Christ.

The interviews with some of the monks were fascinating, but they all struck me as almost sad. The life of a monk, while romantic for people with that sort of faith, I suppose, is one of having given up on the world. Now, to be fair, that's probably not the dumbest thing in the world to do, but it still strikes me as a deeply flawed way to live; perhaps because while, assuming you have that bent, it might be nice to spend every last second of every last minute of every last day of your life attempting to "get closer to God" - something about the whole idea seems incredibly selfish to me, though I'm at a loss as to explain why I feel that way, or how I come to that conclusion. Probably just me making another snap-judgement about something I can't understand.

Still, these are men of incredible faith who believe with all their hearts that which they believe. -Another premise we're supposed to laud that I find, depresses me.

Why? -Ah, now that one I can answer. It's because once people stop asking questions, or if they frame all the questions they do ask within the context of that which they've already decided is absolutely positively the way things are? -I have to stop caring about the questions they formulate, or, for that matter, any answers they concoct for themselves.

And that is probably selfish of me.

Thought for the day: (As I stand posed in thoughtful soliloquy mode...)

Five workdays left in the year.

To try to kick ass, or to not try to kick ass?

That is the question.

Whether 'tis nobler to to accept what the year has given me and coast a bit this week

(while still fulfilling any requests for my services people happen to make, of course),

or whether, instead, I should get my butt out there and produce,

and by opposing my nature to be a bit lazy during the week between the holidays,

-stare down the habit and forever end it?

Let the decision wash over me as the week unfolds,

 - and be all my sins remembered (Well, "remembred", really...)

Christmas Morning, Sunday, 4:00 a.m.

The first thing I saw this morning when I walked outside and looked up was the Little Dipper. It's crystal clear around here.

Last night I attended a beautiful Christmas Eve service about a mile from here. Can't tell you how much it meant to me to be there. It was the very best gift I'll receive this year - or give, for that matter.

Merry Christmas.

I'll write something later...

It's Christmas Eve morning at 5:49 a.m.

I've been awake for an hour or so. Took a bunch of turns in my ongoing "Words With Friends" wars with AC, fractalmom (who either has the world's best vocabulary or uses a word generator - haven't yet figured out which... I mean, "quinkerlator", really? -- okay, okay, so I made that one up...) and a couple of others, then downed a cup of coffee while I checked out the cold morning air.

Going to a Christmas Eve Service tonight to hear a singer I haven't heard in a while, which will be fun. Other than running to the shop to wrap a couple of last minute gifts I ran across yesterday while spending an hour at the mall, I have no other major plans today. Gonna stop to see a couple of friends, but that's about it. As Christmas Eves go? -Strange, but kind of nice.

Hope everyone else has as nice a day as I plan to have, and has reason to feel as thankful.

Merrrrrry Christmas.