Status Report

I can't imagine that there are two more exhausted parents than my wife and I. I'm probably wrong about that and if so I wish those other parents my deepest sympathies.

Feel Good Friday

Friday's almost done but I'll post anyhow. From Bon Jovi's This Left Feels Right, enjoy a reworking of "You Give Love A Bad Name." I like it.




As an afterthought I'll add a song that's been in my head all day. As has been reported from within the McCain camp, apparently Mrs. Sarah Palin was unaware that Africa was a continent and not a country. I really hope that it's just a ridiculous claim, but one just doesn't know for sure. Anyway, enjoy Toto. They probably knew that little fact.

Diamonds On My Windshield

It ain't the most profound of lyrics, but I think my favorite two lines from any Tom Waits song are the following:

A Wisconsin hiker with a cue-ball head
Is wishing he was home in a Wiscosin bed

A Young Girl On An Autumn Day

Or Maybe It's Just A Phase

In recent developments, my daughter seems to be quite the hockey fan. At age three, and oh so "girly" in the ways of princesses and all things sweet and sensitive, I'm a bit surprised. But there she was, arguing with me tonight to watch the Devils and Sabres do their thing on the ice. I mentioned that hockey was on while I was surfing around to see what I wanted to watch. She wanted to watch hockey but I wanted to watch Monday Night Countdown prior to tonight's Redskins-Steelers matchup. Already mastering her way around a conversation she offered: "Dad, you do know that they're just talking about football, right? Now turn it to hockey."

She had made her point and so I turned it to hockey. She watched a few minutes, we talked about what was going on and the names of the teams and her short little attention span took her to the other room. It seemed like as safe a time as any and I turned the channel back to Monday Night Countdown. Within seconds, my little princess hurried back into the living room with actual tears on her face. I assumed her brother had made her cry somehow. Wrong. It was me. "Dad, you turned the channel when I didn't want you to," she accused.

Back to hockey. Olvia, the biggest hockey fan I know, is hereby welcome to borrow her and take her to a game whenever she wants.

Father Daughter

Thinking about my sweetie. Thankful that she loves me.

Blogging is fun when I don't worry about it being good.

What's the deal with Twitter SMS? I send a tweet from my phone and have no confidence that it will update within the next ten hours or so. Someone please buy me an iPhone or a G1 Android so I can stay in the Twitter loop at all times. Just kidding. Sometimes it's healthy to just make do with what you've got.

I saw Nine Inch Nails on Halloween. The good post about the show is here . The thing that I'm talking about is something that made me smile the day after. I went to read about the concert on the NIN website under the forums page and read about someone who was bitching about a stolen tambourine. The person complained that Trent Reznor tossed his tambourine down to her after she asked him for it. According to her story, someone then immediately dragged her to the ground and took it from her. I read that and got pissed on her behalf remembering the time someone grabbed a program from my hands at a Dio show. Anyway, that crap happens.

Later that evening I was at work and talking to a co-worker about the show when she mentioned that a friend of a friend was bragging about a tambourine that he or she had gotten at the concert. Small world, I guess. I told her what I had read of that story and she got a kick out of it. She'll ask her friend about that and tell me more from that side of the story. I didn't know either person but between the Internet and a co-worker I found myself somewhat knowledgeable about two sides to a story about some silly tambourine incident at a NIN show.

In other news (I'm allowing myself some meaningless rambles tonight), I'm still trying to decide if I love the new Todd Rundgren CD or not. It really rocks hard, but something holds me back from really hearing it as I think I'm supposed to hear it. He's so talented and so sharp that it almost feels too calculated to be trusted as a true rock 'n' roll experience. It's not fair of me to look at it like that, but there it is. I found it helped for me to look at it not as a new Todd Rundgren release but rather as some debut CD by some 20-somethings trying to make their mark. Is that the bastard elitist coming out in me? It's not real rock unless it's performed by broke, mean and lean musicians? Anyway, "Gun" is currently my favorite track from the CD, although the big riff seems to borrow (or is it steal?) from Alice Cooper's famous "School's Out."

Also, I want to write with a bit less self-consciousness, a bit less politeness, but there are some respectable people out there with my last name and I'd hate for them to have to answer to my weird blog posts if they were to have bosses and potential bosses come across the blog. Maybe I'll start another one and find the balls to cuss on it from time to time.

I'm going to bed now. Thanks for reading.

"It's A Sad And Beautiful World"

My friend and co-worker died in a car wreck yesterday. I think he was in his mid-40s. I clocked in, heard the news, and worked for the next nine hours, smiling in public and trying not to cry in private. When trying to process his sudden absence from our lives, I kept hearing the phrase, "life is fleeting" in my head. That line which I first heard in Gary Oldman's Romeo Is Bleeding so many years ago always sounded somewhat cool and profound. We lose a friend though and the line carries very little weight. I tried to say it in conversation with friends today, but I would ponder it first, decide that it sounded devoid of proper compassion and let it go unsaid.

All of us at the workplace will miss our friend very much. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and loved ones. We're all going to have to just deal with this in each of our own personal ways. (I guess this is mine.) When my wheels wouldn't go, he was my ride to and from work. I'd wait for him outside my apartment while listening to Tom Waits on my iPod. He would pull up and I'd hop into his car where Mariah Carey was always sure to be playing on his stereo. If not the music, then the rides and the good conversations were always well appreciated. He was always a good Samaritan to me.

Life is fleeting. Or, "it's a sad and beautiful world." From Down By Law, starring Tom Waits, John Lurie, and Roberto Benigni, here's one of my favorite scenes.

For Makenzie

My wife knows a little girl who recently underwent surgery to have a malignant brain tumor removed. Her name is Makenzie and she is currently receiving radiation treatments.

For more information and to help if you can, click Makenzie's Page.

Vanderbilt's Lacrosse team is excited to help. (Lacrosse team reaches out to local child)

Corn Maze? Corn Walk In The Park.

We went to a pumpkin patch yesterday. It was a field trip for my kindergartener and his class and we had the big time. We rode the hayride (sans hay). We pet the goats, learned about farm animals, and each kid got to pick a pumpkin to take home.

The thing I was most excited about was the corn maze. In all of my years, I had never walked through one before. Here was my opportunity. Well, a challenge it was not. Granted, the organizers maybe had their reasons for keeping it simple. There were hundreds of kids from various schools there and time might have been a factor. The kids were all little and maybe no one wanted to deal with the chance that some kids would get lost and afraid. I get that. Still, I was underwhelmed.

We had a leader. The leader, quite familiar with each correct turn, kept a quick pace and made no attempt to even pretend to get confused. We were far back in a line of maybe thirty people or so and simply followed the long and winding line before us. Thus, my first experience in a corn maze was that of walking briskly behind a line of, well, brisk walkers. The corn maze experience lasted maybe all of a minute and a half. I got separated from my kid at the entrance and didn't even get to talk to him as we made our way through.

Maybe on a different day this would be different. Maybe if it was just my small family going through it alone and not hundreds of school kids, teachers, and parents descending upon the small maze for the big field trip, then the experience might have been more of a fun challenge. My criticism aside, the kids had big fun. It was for them less about the concept of a maze and more about the fun of walking around amidst tall, brown corn stalks. Their fun, of course, is the point. They had a blast.

Fun Day at Pumpkin Patch with Wife and Kid

Oink

Feel Good Friday - Clean It Up

I found a nice little video by the Nashville Hikers Meet Up Group on YouTube while looking around for something to post for Feel Good Friday. It's good people cleaning up litter and having a good time doing it. Imagine my surprise to see my friend and coworker, Nashville's Metropolitan Beautification & Environment Commission neighborhood liaison, Lawrence Jackson in one of the slide show photos.

He and the Nashville Hikers Group are doing their part to help keep our city clean of unsightly litter on Bell Road near the Percy Priest Dam. I've walked the six mile stretch from home to work that is included in the photos in the clip and I've noticed the trash at my feet. It's just so unnecessary, of course.

Anyway, my thanks to the Nashville Hikers Group and to our own Beautification & Environment Commission for doing so much work to keep our city clean. Civic pride and volunteerism make me feel good on this Friday.

Check NashvilleOutdoors.net for more information on appreciating and benefiting from what Nashville has to offer.

With Parenthesis