Midnight Cafe Discussions

It can happen to you...

2008-05-25T16:10:00.002-06:00

I, one of two Information Technology men in the group, have screwed up my computer. Well let's just leave it at, I managed to delete my address book and all e-mails in Outlook simply becaue I did not realize an outlook.pst associated with an unused account on my computer was also associated to my current user profile. I deleted that old profile to save some space (laugh jamison 500 mb though I had 16GB free). So let this be a lesson to you, "look before you leap".

So, can everyone send me an e-mail so I can add you back?

Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

2008-04-16T20:17:00.005-06:00

I have two reason's for this post. I'll get to the one that affects the gang first. Look at these pics. I might have found the spot for our get together. The place will hold all of us easily and it has digital Satelite. The cost a good faith donation to the owner and nothing more. The location is near Jasper, AL.

OK, so why did I end up at this spot?

My two brothers and I had our first annual Brothers Only weekend (3 full days together). We stayed in this lake only because bad weather was on the way and a pop-up camper did not sound like a good idea. The weekend was all about getting to know each other, setting priorities, discussing family (each respectivily and our parents), and current activities and health concerns, etc. It was great. There was a formal talking point agenda but no set schedule. We talked, walked, skipped rocks, played a few outdoor games, watched movies, ate, and produced copious amounts of flatulence.

The weekend was magnificient and I hope we can make it an annual thing.

BlogTalkRadio Share Show Widget

2008-04-15T18:14:00.003-06:00

Jamison Interviews Sipper about book writing, tune in. Friday, 5pm central time.

Jamison has joined the ranks of Brew...

2008-03-04T19:44:00.003-06:00

No, I am not going to China... but I am a BlogCritic now (blogcritics.org) which likely means nothing to you guys, but it means LOADS for my site and my name. BC gets thousands of hits per day and covers the gamut of topics. And since there are so few Science and Tech writers with BC, my articles typically make the front page. Kind of exciting...

My latest article is here

Stay tuned to the home page of BC for my latest rant on Microsoft playing catch up to Google.

Hello, My Name is Chase

2008-02-29T16:25:00.008-06:00

I’m an 8-year old, A.K.C. registered Shitztu (I’m also neutered). My Mommy and Daddy are trying to help me find a good home. You see, I’ve been lonely since we moved to Florida, because Mommy and Daddy aren’t home as much.

I’m curious, confident, and sometimes sneaky (especially when I want to sleep in Mommy and Daddy’s room at night). I really love to play with toys when a human is on the other end of it and I like to rough house. When I’m not playing, I’ll chew on my bone, lick up things I find interesting on the floor, or just sleep. I’m also very quite.

I’d really love a home with someone who is there most of the time to play with or watch over. I also might be happy with a couple other dogs my size or larger.

I have a few traits you need to know about:

I have a sensitive stomach and eat special dog food I can only get with a prescription. I can’t even eat table scraps.

I do not like being put in a kennel, and sometimes when I left at home for more than 7 or 8 hours, I get a overly anxious.

If you know of a good home or want to take me home with you, please contact my Mommy and Daddy (contact info excluded)...

Everything above this point (including the title) was a part of a flyer I made to find a new home for Chase. Today, I took him to that new home. Unless something happens, I will never return to see him. I can't do that to him or myself.

When I returned home I lay on my stomach flat on the floor and cried and prayed. Why? (And, why am I holding back tears now?) Chase was just a dog, he turned 8 years old Feb 10th, and here I am writting an epitath just as if he died recently. I have lost part of myself. For eight years, I walked him, bathed him, played with him, and confided in him. I've seen Alexandra recently take to him and start playing with him. And now, I won't get the chance to see him grow old, he won't be there to greet me when I come in the door, he won't be around to...

Dream: A Village, A Lion, and a Peculiar Death

2008-02-28T19:19:00.000-06:00

I was in the suburbs with its nice, lovely houses, and quiet, manicured lawns, yet the community was full of third world looking natives. The dream started with a man being brought before the people who was badly burned all over. The local doctor had a look at him but confirmed there was nothing he could do to save the man, or ease his pain.

It was against the villages moral code to euthanize him, but they agonized over his pain. The doctor had a rather bizarre plan. He would take the man and place him inside a garage. He would then put a lion inside the garage. Sooner or later the lion would eat the sick man and put him out of his misery. The village would then kill the lion and eat it. This way they would also be consuming the man and absorbing his wisdom, or something. This was perfectly acceptable and good, even though killing them man themselves or eating him directly would be bad.

The entire village gathered around the dying man and the garage. The man's wife or mother, I couldn't tell which, wailed loudly as the body was moved towards the garage. At some point the loved one grabbed ahold of one of the men carrying the dying man and started to do the conga behind him. Others gathered and they formed a long, and boisterous conga line.

Finally the dying man was placed into the garage and the lion was brought forth. Before the lion was placed into the garage, a young boy snuck in as he wanted to watch the lion eat the man. The lion then went in and we waited outside the garage.

After a bit we went inside, only to find a different sort of scene than we expected. The lion was lying dead beside a dead mauled boy, while the burned man was standing upright with a knife in his hand. It seems he had pushed the boy towards the lion which proceeded to eat the boy. As the lion was distracted by the boy, the burned man killed it with his knife.

The village uproared at the man having used the boys life to save his own. The man replied that he wasn't quite ready to die and thus did the only thing he could do to stay alive.

Arguments went about, and I awoke.

If Life Hands You Lemons...Run!

2008-02-26T13:47:00.003-06:00

Don't think I'll ever do that again.

Stuck Inside of Memphis (With the Mobile Phone Blues Again)

2008-02-26T01:59:00.001-06:00

"I hate cell phones."

That has been my mantra against mobiles for many a year now. It has always been true too. Until recently at least. Until we moved to China, I had never owned a mobile phone. Truth is I never needed one. I'm not exactly a big telephone guy. I don't make many calls. Don't receive many calls. I try to stay off the phone as much as possible.

I had never seen a need to get a mobile. I've always had a house phone, and I normally have a direct line at work. I spend pretty much the majority of my time at either of those places, and those who need me have those numbers. When I am out and about, I have voice mail where I can receive messages. Do I really need to talk to anybody so badly that I have to take the call while I'm driving? Shopping? At church? No on all accounts.

I'm sure they come in useful for emergencies, or automobile problems. People survived for many years without mobile phones during emergencies and auto problems, I used to say to myself, and thus I can survive without them now.

And so, without a phone, I often found myself high and mighty. Abuses abound with cellular phones, for sure. You can constantly see people talking on their phones while driving. These same people will be swerving across lanes, driving entirely too slow, they are slow on the take off from stop lights, and often are seen cutting others off.

So many times I see cell phone users, rudely take a call while they are chatting with someone in person, or gathered at a meal. Even worse I see them constantly taking calls while they are ordering food, or at the cash register while shopping. 'How rude' I think to treat the cashier so poorly as to not acknowledge them.

In Shanghai, mobile phones are just about necessary. Traveling about the city, it is very easy to get lost, or separated from the group. Cell phones come in very handy. Often, when I am out, I have had to call someone for directions. Plentys the time I have called someone when getting into a cab so that they could tell the cab driver where to go. Shopping is an adventure all its own. The stores are often very large, and always crowded with huge amounts of people. Amy and I often call each other in the stores just to figure out where we are.

Etc.

I am sure we could manage without cell phones whilst living here, but the convenience factor finally made us succumb. And now I have fallen prey to all the things I hate. The other day I was shopping for some warm clothes for Japan and just as I was coming up to the counter I got a text message. Amy got one too, at the same time. Both of us immediately got out our phones and began texting a reply.

I threw my items for purchase up on the counter. Paid no attention at all to the cashier, and tried to fish out the cash whilst still texting.

Then it dawned on me on what I was doing and I was so ashamed.

I understand now why so many people become so rude with these devices. It is so hard not to answer when the phone rings. It is crazy difficult not to read and reply to a text when I receive them. There is something so primal about the need to answer the call. In my pre-cell phone days I would often not answer my land line. Certain times of the day I knew the call was not going to be for me, or would be annoying and I'd simply ignore the ringing. I can't do that with my cell phone.

Maybe it is because I can tell who is calling now. Knowing that it is my friend Sara, or my sister makes me need to answer. Even not knowing the number makes me interested in who it could be.

And thus I have become what I have hated.

Brewster Comments
Exactly Diana. I text all the time cause it is so much easier, and cheaper to do so than to call. If I have something slightly complicated to say, I'll call, but if it is just making plans or whatever, I always text.

emergency funion

2008-02-25T13:26:00.000-06:00

So it wasn’t as last as it could have been but it was late enough to realize that the next day wasn’t going to be too much fun.

Caleb was at the grandparents and Isaac was continuing the second day of a low but very even fever. Jules and I decided it was time to visit the ER, Isaac had had some meds that helped but the cough was continuing to nag.

I need to state very clearly I am not a hospital person. It’s not that I am afraid or even bothered by them, more to the point I don’t see much need for then in the general function of my world. If you’re sick you need to go see a doctor, in most situations it’s all very worthwhile to tend your co-pay and sit in the doctor’s office for a while. Other than that I don’t think most situations of really in need of seeing a doctor through an emergency room. The guy who cuts off his finger on accident, he should go to the ER.

My sick little boy shouldn’t feel so bad. Still, he did and I consented, carried him to the car and we were off. At this point I should state that Julie IS a hospital person, I have tried to break her of this ideological position and there are times when I think I’ve pulled her into my camp. Then there are other times when depending on the perfect situations maybe it’s worth sitting in a room full of people who are covered in sick bugs.

Once there Jules and I sign in, actually she signs in, she’s the hospital person, this is her world, she’s in the concerned-mother-taking-her-baby-to-the-hospital- zone. I carry Isaac one of the few open chairs, its 9pm. This is another problem I have with going to the ER; it’s a pain and never when I want to go. I would rather wait until I’m more rested to have to deal with the whole thing.

Now that we’re here there is the host of usual suspects, very young couple with very sick and snotty kid (been there, done that), old folks without their lower set of dentures, college aged kid who looks like he’s punched a brick wall, clutching his hand, and a variety of folks who though I can’t say look like they feel bad but certainly look like they are less than thrilled with life in general.

After an hour we get back to fill out some papers, Isaac’s name is in fact Isaac, he is generally healthy and we are in fact legal American citizens of Earth. Julie, again, shines.

Back in the chairs Isaac continues to lay down and generally droops about, it is of course well past his bed time, I’m not expecting him to be doing jumping jacks. He does look a bit more awake though and as he sits up he starts looking around his sickly majesty states he’s hungry.

I do a quick analysis of his situation and decide even with a sore throat he could stand some sort of something and with him feeling bad I was willing to concede to his whims. After realizing the café was actually closed though the gate was up I got some change and marched back across the hospital to the vending machines. Funions were the requested snack and the machine seemed ready to help.

Here is the thing. When my family is feeling bad I’ll do anything in the world for them but what I saw before me was almost the breaking point. It was quickly reaching the edge of being late, I was bored, Isaac wasn’t feeling great and there in front of me was one of the great injustices of the world. For seventy five cents I could purchase a bag of chips, not a substitute chee-toe bag but the actual Funion chips/rings my sick child wanted. Everything was perfect except for the extra space in front of the row. The first slot was empty, the second slot held the Funions. I imagined some kid (who would have been me once) standing there beating the crap out of the machine to get the once first slot of chips to fall, that punk has shorted me almost 3/4th of an extra dollar. I feel bad admitting I stood there and considered getting the second choice chee-toes just so I wouldn’t have to waste another three-quarter dollar. In the end I relented and realized my son was worth it. In fact if I needed to I would have dropped every last dime and dollar I had to get the boy what he wanted.

A short time later I marched back with a small bag of Funions. In no time, with a bit of food in his belly Isaac started to feel better and we decided it was time to head towards the house. Isaac beat the fever the next day and he saw his usual doctor again. He’s had a quick succession of illnesses and hasn’t completely shaken the last one yet but I am happy to report no one has had to visit the emergency room since.

The homophobic grocery shopper

2008-02-25T07:44:00.003-06:00

Have you seen this guy? He is shopping at the grocery store, alone. Which, in and of itself is not strange. I do it often to avoid having to take the whole family to go grocery shopping, let the child finish a nap, get something off my weekly list, etc...

Apparently, though, there are some men that think that by pushing the grocery cart from the back, that this somehow makes them appear effeminate. So, rather than run the risk of total strangers whom he will never see again thinking that he is gay, he either pulls the cart from the front (And do his shopping as though he were a donkey pulling a wagon) or he will hold the side of the buggy and push it that way, as if his invisible wife is really pushing the cart and he is just "hanging there".

Men, there are handles on the back of grocery carts for a reason. Root word being "HAND". I don't know when or where men got the idea that walking behind the cart was effeminate. If anything, it is masculine in a sexual way that I will not type here.

However, I kind of sympathize with these men, I remember thinking one day, while shopping by myself (must have been in the early days of marriage?) that I felt strange pushing the cart. I have no idea why, but I felt weird, and I may even had succumbed to the art of pulling the cart, but I got over that pretty quickly.

Brewster's Comment
For whatever reason the carts around here have minds of their own. The wheels are super greased or something and they turn super easy. What I mean to say is that they turn around too easily so that I often find the handles of the cart slipping away and all there is to grab is the side or the front.

That doesn't make any sense, but its true. The carts move super fast and turn all over the place. Thus I become your 'homophobic' grocery shopper. For me it has nothing to do with manhood, but just where the cart winds up sometimes.

Red Raspberry

2008-02-25T07:31:00.002-06:00

Go to any gas station and buy a slushy and you will likely see the flavor "Blue Raspberry" and "Red Raspberry". This makes sense. Of course, there is no such thing as blue raspberry, yet somehow we all think that the name makes it a good flavor, so we buy into it.

Look at fruit-based candy around your grocer's aisle. You will also likely see a flavor known as "Red Raspberry". Even "Jelly Belly" jelly beans have a "Red Raspberry."

But here is what gets me... Go down the jam and jelly aisle. You will rarely find a "Raspberry" flavored jam, it will most certainly be "RED raspberry"!

Did I miss something here? Did yellow raspberries enter the agricultural scene without me knowing? Is there REALLY such a fruit as "Blue raspberry"? Do raspberries come in purple? Why do we suddenly have to preface the word "raspberry" with red now? It makes no sense! There are no other colors of raspberries!

It makes sense in the apple kingdom. There are so many different kinds of apples, but even in that community they at least get CREATIVE with the colors; "Red Delicious" and "Golden Delicious". Heck, most have abandoned the colors altogether, have you see the "Jazz" apple, and of course the Granny Smith apple.

Why not start labeling all strawberry flavored foods as "Red Strawberry"? Or what's wrong with "Yellow Banana?". Would you care for an Orange Orange?

If it is all about marketing, then fine. Maybe some studies showed that the public does not like the word "Raspberry" and somehow, but prefacing it with the adjective "Red" we all start drooling.

Friends you just can't shake

2008-02-18T09:50:00.009-06:00

We all have had friends from High School, for example, that while in HS, we all thought we would be friends forever. 14 or so years later, you either never speak to them or may not even know where they are located anymore. We even made friends in college that we kind of hung out with, but today haven't the slightest clue as to what they are up to, even in this day and age of MySpace and Facebook.

Then, of course we have those friends that we keep in touch with on an almost weekly basis. Friends we made in High School or College, that now live in Alabama and China and all points in between.

But then there are those friends we were great pals with at one point in our lives, then we all got radio silence, then suddenly the friendship is back! One of those friends, to me, is KellieJ.

This post is liken to that that I wrote almost a year ago to the week actually, titled "Sat on their park bench like bookends."

My wife and I had to go down to Tampa, FL to host a baby shower for my sister-in-law. As luck would have it, I found out from Kellie herself that she lived not but 1.5 hours from there and that the possibility of her coming up to see us was very much so a reality.

We got extremely lucky in that she was able to make it. She drove alone as her husband had to work. She even put up with me feeling like we had to go to some cool resturant in Tampa to eat dinner. God showed me how stupid I was by allowing me to get lost and miss an exit. I was so upset that I was wasting Kellie's time. We pulled off at a random exit and we ate and some pizzaria next to a Publix grocery store. And honestly, we could have eaten at a filthy Wal-Mart eatery and still enjoyed the time.

I sometimes tend to forget that with true friends, it doesn't matter where you eat, what you eat, or even tat you do eat together. Kellie, my wife and I had a ball catching up and just laughing. It was actually better than the good ole days of college because, while Kellie and I spoke in college and hung out and various events, I wouldn't say the two of us were inseperable buddies, but it seems that time, distance, life (And the internet) has brought us together as friends, albeit, friends that typically communicate via email, blog, or MySpace.

When Kellie and I started communicating with each other several years after college, she became a sort of celebrity to me. Everyone knew her, everyone liked her, andeveryone had good memories of her. She made several awesome YouTube videos (mostly of old school footage) that made everyone in our MySpace realm become so thankful for her. I began toying with YouTube and film and would always look to Kellie to approve my work. So us hanging out with Kellie was, in a way to me, like hanging out with a really famous person! I did, however, forget to get her autograph.

You all will be happy to know that Kellie is just as nice and geniue as ever, and still looks like the old KellieJ, only better! Kellie has always been one of those people who everyone likes, but in the back of your head you keep thinking "Can someone REALLY be this nice or is she a mean and hateful person behind closed doors?". I tend to think she is the real deal. :)

By the way, if anyone can explain to me what the relationship between aligator heads and windchimes are, I am all ears (See pic below)

Does anyone out there still like Star Wars?

2008-02-14T07:13:00.001-06:00

Lucas has ruined his own baby. If anyone out there still has respect for the franchise, please reply...

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080214/D8UQ3CTO0.html

Brew Here: Still can't comment properly so I'm injecting my points into the original post. I think most of us old school fans have pretty much given up on Lucas and Star Wars. He keeps milking his cash cow and ruining most of it.

Still I will always treasure what Star Wars gave me as a kid and cross my fingers that any new projects will shed a little of that original glow back down upon us. Looking at the trailer for this new thing I'm given a little more hope. It looks pretty cool, actually, and that's enough to get me into theatres.

High Fashion

2008-02-11T18:48:00.000-06:00

I don't buy fashion magazines often. They're expensive and so is the clothing in them. However, it's an occasional guilty pleasure I enjoy. Last Saturday night Charlie and I went to Blockbuster to rent a movie. We were waiting in line, looking at the candy and magazines. Suddenly, I got the urge to buy an issue of Elle magazine. The cover boasted that inside were all the newest spring trends, Jennifer Garner in a post-baby interview, and hints for organizing your life. "That sounds exciting," I said to myself. I haven't splurged on myself in a while and I could use a relaxing night mulling over fashion tips. So I picked it up.

I spent Saturday night flipping through the magazine, looking at the newest shoes, reading about new DNA testing, wondering if the latest beauty treatments really worked. Sunday after church, I picked it up again to read the Jennifer Garner article.

"With a brand new baby and a brand new movie Catch and Release, Jennifer Garner is...."

Hold the phone. Brand new movie? That movie's a year old! What in the world? I turned to the front of the magazine to check the date. January 2007. The stinking magazine was over a year old!

Well of course I took it back. I mean, that's just ludicrous. Over a year old? I was all ready to go out and buy metallic sandals. Can you imagine?

a mediocre 27

2008-02-07T16:34:00.001-06:00

It used to be that I thought old people wore glasses. Somewhere in junior high I realized I couldn’t see past my arm and I needed glasses. Since that time I’ve worn glasses with a preference for contacts from high school on. Considering I need my eyes to do my job one would think that I might take better care of my eyes. The simple fact is that I don’t. I wear contacts that are designed for three weeks of wear for ten months.

The only reason I went to the eye doc last week was because, the right contact was actually hazy. Not that the thing had two pieces torn out of the edge, not that my eyes turned bright red after three hours of ware, it was actually affecting how my eyes would, rather, would not focus when I looked through a camera.

So I call the place I went to over a year and a half earlier for an appointment. Everything was fine I looked through the metal, mega, view-finder, goggles and did the dog and pony show like I’m supposed to. My eyes hadn’t changed a bit. I am just as blind today as I was a year and a half ago, Yippee!

Here’s the thing that got me. I was talking to the doctor and without a second thought he tells me, “well Matt you’ve got a slight stigmatism, it’s not anything to worry about now but as you get closer to forty we’ll watch it a bit more.”

I processed this a bit and had to figure out how old I was, “30, 31, 32, 33, 34… Holy shit I’m 34 years old.” Never before had the thought of being an actual age closer to 40 ever occurred to me. I know that I’m the older of the brothers here but I don’t think about my age in numbers. I had the thought that the reason I couldn’t remember my age might be because I’m suddenly older. Yes, suddenly older. It happened all of a sudden, without warning.

For the first time I was associated with the age of FORTY.
Turning thirty was fine because that’s almost a milestone. You’re well beyond teenage and you’re to the point where a stranger might suspect you to be a decent law abiding citizen at a glance. Forty is a decade from fifty and at that point I’ll need to be considering a regular doctors visit, an annual colonoscopy, a fiber filled diet, wrinkles, my hair line finally receding, angina (I don’t know what that is but it sounds awful) and eventually an old folks home.

Damn.

Honestly it’s more frustrating than anything else because I don’t feel like someone who should have the “aged” word forty applied to them in any capacity. That’s what it’s all about and I thank God for the fact that I don’t feel anywhere close to forty. I honestly don’t feel 34, 30. I could say I feel like a mediocre 27.

general rambling

2008-01-18T15:35:00.000-06:00

There is a reason why after first seeing the show Quantum Leap I fell in love with it. I remember thinking about how much I wanted to be lost in time and thrown into a new situation everyday. Trying to find a way to fix something or help someone or simply to experience a moment in someone’s history that might change their life.

I’ve not changed anyone’s life in my job but I like to think that the stories I get to tell might help nudge someone else to change their life. I don’t work with interventions or reality shows but I do get to tell stories that mean something. When I show a story with the production staff of my show and they pause or take a deep breath to hold something back or laugh out loud or even roll their eyes because of some absurd angle I’ve taken I realize someone “out there” might do the same thing.

I’ve been in restaurants and head someone talk about a piece I’ve done and to hear them say they liked it is a good feeling.

There’s a long list of things that I’ve seen and had an opportunity to do that not everyone gets to and there is a much longer list of things I’ve yet to do.

In the end I’m blessed by a loving God to give me these moments. Still my greatest gift is the understanding that what I’ve done is nothing without that God standing by my side and pointing me in one direction or another.

I love my job but it’s nothing compared with the story of love and amazment God has to share with me.

BlogTalkRadio Share Show Widget

2008-01-05T17:22:00.001-06:00

New Years Fun

2007-12-29T14:37:00.000-06:00

Well, another new year is upon us and I thought I would re-share with everyone a new years eve celebration I had 11 year ago almost to the day. It was in college and it was pretty wild, so be warned.

And back in 1996, it was considered cool to wear your tee shirt inside out, so don;t make fun of my 20 year old self. And we didn't have DVDs either.

Enjoy!

Christmas visit with the Mullins

2007-12-28T07:52:00.000-06:00

This Christmas we went to Chattanooga to spend time with my folks...

And how could I not get together with the Mullins clan while being an hour and some change from them? Fortunately for us, they were willing to come to Chattanooga to see us.

The meeting was all too short, dinner, a walk, and some tourist shopping, but it was fun and always good to see good friends. Jules walked across the walking bridge and I seemed to have forgotten her fear of bridges, perhaps she was too kind to mention it to us when we suggested the path.

It's wierd how you can not see a friend for a long time, communicate pretty much only through email, have a long list of things to ask them about and talk to them about, yet when you get together like this, you just shoot the breeze as though the friend lived down the road and you saw them on a regular basis.

Alas, signs of a solid friendship...

A Message

2007-12-22T18:26:00.000-06:00

2.5 years into this blog, I wish all of you a Merry Christmas!

Keeping the Faith

2007-12-11T15:23:00.001-06:00

So in the past year there have been many roads that the Mullins family has traversed, some I thought I’d never see, none the less we’re carrying on and moving forward on faith. Since I became a Christian in 92ish I have attended Highland View C.o.C. while living in Oak Ridge.
When I started going I was a bit too old for the youth group and too young for college group. I can’t remember one person I graduated with that went to church where I did. I felt a bit out of place but was comfortable there because the grandparents attended; in fact my grandmother was one of the first members of the congregation. My grandfather kindly states, “she came with the building” which is funny because they both helped move the church to its current location.

The gist of the story is that as a young Christian this is where I grew up, my going to church is what prompted my mother to start going again, history, history, history, blaa, blaa, blaa. Through all of this I have always enjoyed the folks but I never really felt like I was called to be there to worship as a family.

Somewhere in the past year Jules and I feel pretty disconnected from the HV family and we start to consider if we can re-anchor or if we should try something different. Jules ends up going forward one weekend and there is the typical hug and support session. After that we get one card. The girl went forward asking for the support of the Body of Christ because she we missing that in a big way. She was pleading to her church family for the past seven years for help. We were out of town the following weekend, nothing not a call. Something came up and we missed the next weekend, no wondering where we might have been. We decide to try another C.o.C in Oak Ridge. For almost the past two months we’ve had nothing but positive experiences.
New York Avenue is an older congregation and fairly traditional, I’ve not seen one Power Point song yet. They don’t have a children’s church and the boys have relearned how to sit in the auditorium. Jules and I really feel uplifted in church, which frankly hasn’t happened in a very long time.

A couple of weeks ago I’m talking to the grandfather and he says that one of the elders had asked about us. We get into the conversation about not feeling like we were getting anything out of HV, admittedly that we also hadn’t put much into it either. We sort of find a stopping point and agree to just agree.
Two weeks ago my mother tells Jules and I, with tear filled eyes, that the grandparents don’t understand how and why we’re not attending HV anymore and that they are really missing us. Mom throws in her two cents and says the same thing.

Now, and I consider this nothing less than confusingly ironic, that I’m getting something out of going to church again, I’m being pulled back into going to the place that I got little to nothing out of. I’m a very unconventional person and consider the whole membership thing (to a specific church not denomination) a bit silly. I mean the Body of Christ is the Body of Christ, not the Body of Christ at 123 Baptism Street versus 456 Holy Roller Street.
I think that we’re going to move our membership (silly idea) to the new place and take one Sunday a month and visit Highland View. It’s confusing because more than anything it’s a test of sorts. Sort of in the way that you will forsake your own family, mother and father for “my sake”. The family has some hurt feelings because we’re not going to HV, Jules now feels uncomfortable because the people at HV haven’t talked to us in a long time (long story short, we brought visitors to HV for Halloween, not only did no one speak to us but no one spoke to the guests one of whom is an award winning film maker who had done more for Oak Ridge recently since the inception of the Manhattan Project) and I’m torn between making those two sides happy and seeking out my own spiritual comfort.

You would hope and think the Christians you have known the longest would be the one who when you are down would be the first to lift you up. Then again perhaps the reason they haven’t is because they either don’t know how or are riding out the inertia of their own discontent, though I hope neither of those are the case.

Brew hits the airwaves! Well, the bandwidth waves...

2007-12-06T07:40:00.000-06:00

Go here to listen to Brews gig on the internet radio show!

Click here

YouTube video of Thanksgiving trip up north.

2007-12-01T13:55:00.000-06:00

A short 3 minute video of some shots of the beautiful state of West Virginia and Maryland.

Brews China Trip In Pictures

2007-11-26T09:03:00.000-06:00

For those of you wanting more and more photos of Brew's visit to China (like myself) but are too lazy to visit his website ( http://www.themidnightcafe.org/ ... very easy, use your Favorites, and commenting is easy, nothing to register to or for) go here for some awesome pics.

And for cryin' out loud, give brew a shout once in a while. Email sucks, blogs are in!

http://picasaweb.google.com/mathew.brewster

It Is A Small World After All

2007-11-18T20:00:00.000-06:00

Me and some friends took a weekend trip to the small city of Ningbo (population 5 million) this weekend. The reason for the trip gets a little complicated but it is worth the telling.

My wife and I have a friend, Pam, who works at the same school as my wife. Pam has an Australian friend named Lucinda who is also in Shanghai but works for another school and lives more in the central part of the city (we're way out on the outskirts of Shanghai.) A few months ago Lucinda visited the US and on her flight back to China she sat with a young Guatemalan man named Gus.

Gus lives in Ningbo and he is the reason we all went (turns out Lucinda wasn't really interested in romance there, but wanted to see him and figured bringing a half dozen of her friends would ensure he got the point.)

When we arrive in Ningbo we find that Gus has also invited a friend along who is actually from a little city very near Shanghai. I get to talking to Gus and it turns out he has lived in Arkansas for the last many years. Searcy Arkansas. And he went to Harding University.

I get a little excited at this news and mention that I have friends who went to Harding, and almost went myself.

At this point we're both a little 'no way,' and so Gus yells at his friend who also went to Harding. We start going through the whole 'do you know...?' thing but as they are many years younger than me there wasn't any overlap in who we knew at Harding.

Then we start talking about me and I say that I'm in China because of my sister and - holy crap - both boys know my sister and her husband! Actually Gus's friend lives in the same building, the same freaking floor, as my brother-in-laws parents.

So to recap my friend's Australian friend went to America and on her plane ride back to China she meets a Guatemalan. Just for friend the Australian and Guatemalan decide to meet up in a city about four hours from Shanghai. The Australian feels awkward and invites her friend who invites me. The Guatemalan feels awkward and invites his friend. Both the Guatemalan and his friend know my sister and one of them lives very close to my brother-in-laws parents.

Seriously, how whacked is that?

Headphones of steel

2007-11-16T09:20:00.001-06:00

I posted this on my techtips site here: http://techtipsforparents.org/?p=59

but thought you guys might get a kick out of it... i know how to tear up some headphones.

Last Christmas, I bought my wife a set of headphones for her iPod. I bought her a pair of Fashion Headphones (Model MDR-J20LIV2) from the Sony store.

If you your your child has an iPod, you know the standard headphones they include are nothing short of worthless. And besides that, they rarely stay in your ear, particularly if you are jogging with them on. These Sony headphones I bought have a loop that goes around the ear, thus enabling her to jog with them.

However, we learned that my wife has odd-shaped ears, and these headphones simply would not stay on her ears. Long story short, the headphones became mine. Which is good because when we had our baby, about the only way I could get a wink of sleep was to upload songs to my PDA cell phone and listen to the music. Naturally, I would fall asleep with these headphones on and I Would wake up with them twisted and mangled beneath me or around my head and neck.

I have posted a photo of these mangles headphones that I still use almost every night because they still sound and work as well as they did when they were brand new.

So if an iPod is on the Christmas list of someone in your family, I recommend trashing the standard iPod headphones and adding some Fashion Headphones (Model MDR-J20LIV2) from the Sony store as a stocking stuffer. They take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’!

Before (new)

After (And still working)

Beyonce In Concert

2007-11-06T17:54:00.000-06:00

I saw the pop diva in concert the other night. If you'd like to read a review, shimy on over to the Midnight Cafe.

Having a fight

2007-11-06T12:39:00.000-06:00

Wrestling and goofing off fighting has been a long standing tradition in my family and with mostly boy cousins there’s never been too much of a shortage of willing participants.

Also growing up with my father being a 5th degree black belt in Isshin-Ryu karate there were lots of instances when dad would show my brother and I how to throw a punch, apply an arm lock or why one would twist their hips as a kick flew towards a knee.

Around last March I seized a few things around my life and decided it was time to start doing something for me. A few months earlier my uncle who is also a 5th degree black belt in Isshin-Ryu opened up a ministry based dojo between my work and home. Now at least once a week if not twice I study this karate.

I love it. Like a fish to water this style of fighting was very natural to me, perhaps it’s because for years I watched my dad run his katas (a routine of defensive and offensive movements) before bed. I don’t know why it all seemed to work but it did and does.

Thursdays is usually considered our fun night, that means it’s sparing time. I’m three belts into my training and going as fast as I can to advance but on Thursdays I get to see where my training is taking me.

So it lines up like this the black belts run us through a few warm ups to get loose, we might run a few katas, we have a little devo type thing and then we’re told to “pad up”. We get hand and foot pad put in out mouth guard (you show up wearing a cup and you do need it) and then for about five to eight minutes at a time we have at it. The class cycles through all skill levels lining up black belts against white belts. The black belts know what they are doing so unless you tell them you want to step things up a bit they are pretty reserved.

A few times I’ve lined up against across from the higher belts and we’ve opened up on each other. Man, its fun! I’ve gotten whopped and left class with knots atop my head and bruises across my body but pitting myself against someone else is wonderful. It’s challenging mentally and physically and it’s one of the best ways I’ve found to get completely exhausted.

It’s sort of hard to explain the hows and why’s it feels good to get hit in the face. What’s easier to explain is that it feels great to learn how to defend yourself from getting hit in the face the next time. If you can move past thinking about technique you understand what you can do to defend yourself and your family at any time.

No I don’t live in an area where there are roving gangs of marauders but if a “swollen’ man” were to come up to me now I could handle the situation with much more confidence.

Last week I was grappling with one of the black belts and made hip “tap out” or submit. I had him on his back in a choke and could have made him black out. I felt great and we went another round, after a good five minute fight he submitted me with a leg lock which could have twisted off my ankle.

At any rate this is how I’ve been spending at least one night a week for the past several weeks, hopefully I’m going to get back to two nights a week every now and again.

The time warp of fatherhood

2007-11-06T09:47:00.001-06:00

The other night, I shook hands with a man who agreed to buy my little black truck from me for his daughter who is in college. When I envisioned this daughter, going only on the description of "in college" I imagined a girl looking between 24 and 29. She looked like she was fresh out of high school. Perceptions have changed.

Along with that, I have parted with my beloved truck. I have sold 4 or 5 cars in my day, and I was sad to see all of them go (Except the Corvette, I wish to never set foot in another one as long as I live). But selling the truck was especially sad for me. I hadn't done any modifications other than dark limo tint. I just kept it clean. Some of my favorite memories of this truck are me grilling in the driveway, with the tailgate down acting as a sort of "workstation" for my grilling masterpiece. Riding down the road to the nearest pond or river with a boat sticking WAY out the back of the bed. Going over a curb to get around someone who doesn't realize they are sitting dead still in an acceleration lane. And my all time favorite memory, though it was short lived, was me and Sip going to a pond in Luverne. It was down, what appeared to be at the time, a very steep embankment. With a boat in the back, she made it down with no problem, and back up with even less of a problem.

Part of me, it seems, was sold for $7,200.

Later I found myself searching the Internet for a good deal on a minivan. Honestly, I have always wanted a minivan, even before even being married. I loved the idea of the extra room on a long trip. But now, it isn't so much the "make and model" that has hit me in the face, but the social perception of a minivan that has come over me. Of course, this is all in my mind. The minivan no longer looks cool or feels cool to me... now that I am a father, it kind of just feels... dad-ish.

I LOVE being a dad. My son is the coolest. I have Z E R O regrets. But before the child came, the "college days" seemed like only a few years ago. Living in Monticello apartments seems like only months ago. And I still would wake up each day living off the high of graduating college and the fact that I had nothing to study for and no homework!

There is SOMETHING about having a child opens your eyes (Rather, slaps you in the face) to the fact that "You ain't young anymore!" I no longer look over to the "college section" at church thinking "Yeah, I am just a few years older than them, they probably look at me as one of them .". Trust me, the don't. I am seeing kids in college now that I knew when they were just entering the 2nd grade.

I heard a song on the radio the other morning from back in 1997 or 1998. About my junior or senior year in college. It was by Paolo Santos, "Sonny came home." Not the best song on earth, but it took me back to living in the apartments on campus. Being 22. I could have heard that song 4 months ago and still felt like it was kinda new. Today I heard it and realized it was very old. 10 years old. Heck, when I heard it the first time, I may have been goofing off with Stubbs, arguing with Brew about some meaningless topic, trying to get Mullins to email us, or riding in Sips Blazer. Ages ago.

This made perfect sense in my head, but writing it out has become very hard to explain.. I guess what I am saying is before my son was born, the idea of getting together will Mullins to go get some photographs of the alligators in the pond on the golf course in my neighborhood seemed do-able, almost like it was just a phone-call and a weekend away! The idea of all of us guys dressing up in black, and hiding on the grass air strip in my neighborhood so I can finally prove that there is a drug lord living up there seemed like something that only needed me to plan it and invite yall over! The thought that on any given Saturday, it would make perfect sense to drive down to Ryan F's. place in Florida just to watch a few football games, eat chips and order a pizza. Now, it seems like just an imagination I can play with to go to sleep at night.

I even thought about my last trip to Disney World with the Sips. For the first time in my life, I was at Disney World ( I had been 4 times before) WITHOUT ADULTS (Little did I realize I was an adult) but I felt free! I didn't have to get to the bus at a certain time, I didn't have to follow someone else around, I WAS IN CHARGE! Next time I go, I will be the adult. I will be a "rule setter" (Though my son will only be 7 months), and, I will be there with my parents... "Adults". So I guess that one trip to Disney world was really my last feeling of freedom, depending on your definition of freedom.

Of course, fatherhood trumps all of this... but that doesn't mean it isn't just a wee-bit sad. But I don't mind being a slave to the son. I heard a comedian describe parenthood in this way: "Having kids is like being in prison... but you REALLY love the warden."

I guess this is goodbye to the dreams of feeling young again. But hello to living the dreams of youth through the eyes of my son!

I sat over my son's crib one night as he drifted off to sleep. I thought about how sinless he was. How he is the closest, touchable human to Jesus Christ right now. Then I started to think about how much he looks like me and that made me think that I had been warped back in time. My son was actually me. And God had let me go back in time to where i was 5 months old... to make sure I don't make the mistakes I made in the past. It is kind of like, my slate is clean, my life has started over, and I can make things good and better by preventing myself (my son) from making my same mistakes. Makes me wish I could keep him sinless forever.... but, impossible.

Hard to explain, but would make a pretty good sci-fi book.

Decor-laz-tions

2007-10-28T12:59:00.000-06:00

Over the past few years, I have begun to notice a trend in the world of holiday decorations. It is that of inflatable decorations.

I can't help but wonder if the kids get to have all that much fun, helping mom and dad decorate the yard with these new inflatable, lazy-friendly devices.

Sure, the tackiness of Christmas decorations have come a few notches down thanks to these things, but I really feel like kids of these lazy parents are missing something. Heck, how much fun can it be to plug in a cord? Boom, your done decorating.

We already have the Christmas trees that fold up like an umbrella, with the lights already in it (Honestly, I do love this) but my entire life growing up I can remember that huge box of a seemingly endless supply or fake pine branches, all color coated, wondering if I will ever be smart enough when I grow up to figure out how to set one of these up.... considering I was and am color-blind...

But this inflatable craze has opened up the doors for these lazy homeowners to celebrate other holidays that aren't normally associated with large, tacky yard decoration.

Take Thanksgiving for example. There is this house in my neighborhood that has a huge inflatable TURKEY that they keep out all November. Whatever happened to the few stacks of hay and a few pumpkins? Some rich folks would take the time to set p a scare-crow! But now it is a huge turkey wearing a pilgrim hat!

And, you can bet that this month, my neighborhood is littered with air-filled Halloween fun. One house has an inflatable snow-globe with witches and bats and such inside... a SNOW GLOBE!

Easter bunnies with air pumps up their rear have replaced the colored eggs hanging from trees (thankfully I guess) and Christmas? Forget about it. They are everywhere. I am just waiting to see who will be the first person in my neighborhood to put up an inflatable Uncle Same on July 4th.

I will say one good thing about the inflatable decor... it comes down fast an easy. No lie there are two homes in my neighborhood that has large Christmas wreathes with lights on them hanging on the side of their home until April, and another came down in June. Some decoration is so hard to put up, homeowners don't feel like bring them down.

Dumbledore Is Gay

2007-10-20T04:50:00.000-06:00

So saw his author.

the origins of the Midnight Cafe

2007-10-15T09:23:00.000-06:00

I found this on Brews page, http://www.themidnightcafe.org/. It was on his "About" page and it reminded me of a time gone by. And I had forgotten the origin of the name "Midnight Cafe." It was one of the many things Mullins said one night... many of which can't be repeated, all of which had us glued to his every word... Here is the text of Brew's "About" page...

Gather round my friends, and hear a tale of the great Midnight Cafe. A tale so sacred and mysterious it has never been told before. It is a story so profound it may just change your life!

Like so many things, it started when I was in college. Most nights, starting anywhere from about 11 until about 1 in the am and often running well into the wee hours, me and some buddies would congregate into our friend, Mullins’, dorm room. We would sit on the bunk bed, or his variety of old, broken down chairs, or flat on the floor. Candles would burn, music would play, things would be done that can never be repeated.

Mainly we just sat around talking about the things that college boys talk about - religion, philosophy, music, movies, and girls. Mostly girls.

Then there was the food. We were always eating. Every now and then one of us would bring back something good - say leftovers from a fancy restaurant if we happened to have a date, or good home cooking if one of had recently gone home - but mostly we ate really cheap crap. There were the typical vending machine junk like Snickers bars, and Twinkies, but we’d often make a grocery store run and get some cheap Carl Buddig ham with some cheddar cheese and a loaf of sour dough bread.

It wasn’t good food, but we made it a feast anyways. There is something very communal and worshipful about eating with your bare hands as a group on the floor of a college dorm room. We bonded there, us men. It is impossible to describe just what happened on all those nights, but somehow we became all intimately connected.

We had fun. Tons of fun doing all sorts of goofy, childish things. We made movies and watched movies and played all sorts of music at all sorts of volumes. And laughed. We were always laughing. But it was more than that too.

As the night would draw onward, conversations would often turn serious. Sure the talks were still about girls most of the time, but as young, single men, conversations about girls are often quite serious. We were all looking for something more in life, and the desire to share that life with someone was quite heavy on our minds.

We talked about God and religion and spirituality. We talked about life and careers. We talked and talked. And in that talking we shared. In that sharing we connected in ways I’ll never be able to explain with the feeble words such as I know. It was something important. It was something meaningful.

I’m still friends with those guys. Even though we’ve all moved out of the dorms and across the country, and world. We’ve all gotten married and started families. Yet we still talk and blog and visit one another as often as we can. I suspect they will remain my friend for as long as I live. I suspect we’ll see each other in the next life too.

One night, while we were all gathered around on the floor, eating Carl Buddig and sourdough bread the phone rang. Well, really the phone would often ring. Nearly every night. And when it would ring Mullins, in his own goofy, lovable way would answer with some lame joke.

“Mullins house of fun.” he’d say. Or “Mullins dance emporium with plenty of naked ladies, where clowns are always welcome.”

That night as he answered the phone he gazed upon all of us with mouths full and said “Midnight Cafe, can I help you?”

And it stuck. From then on we were the Midnight Cafe. It was so obvious. So right. Of course we were the Midnight Cafe. What else would we be? Not only would we gather around midnight and eat, but there was a certain quality to it. There’s something about a cafe that conjures so many images up. The dim lights. The smoke. The friends gathered around greasy food. And when you are in a cafe at midnight, well there’s something special about that. There’s something magic about staying up late with good friends, bearing your hearts and souls.

Since that time I’ve always kept the name tucked into my pocket. My user names have almost always been some variation on the Midnight Cafe. Whenever asked for a company name - say for a form or some such thing - I inevitably call my made up company Midnight Cafe Productions. As I thought about the name for my blog, no other name would fit.

It had to be the Midnight Cafe.

Christopher Walken Has A Blog

2007-10-12T21:28:00.000-06:00

And it is.http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

Ok, it really isn't written by Christopher Walken, but it is hilarious.

Waking up at 4:44am with no hope of ever getting back to sleep thanks to the new love of your life can be fun!

2007-10-12T04:11:00.000-06:00

Wait... no, it can't.

Substitution

2007-10-11T19:56:00.000-06:00

This week I played substitute teacher for a fifth grade science class. It was my first foray into the world of substituting, but hopefully not my last.

For many years of my life I believed I wanted to be some sort of educator. Some sculptor of young minds. I toyed with the idea of being a youth minister, a college professor, or a high school teacher.

Instead I became a corporate, working schlub. I’m not really complaining about that as I’ve made some good money, gained a lot of experience, and had a lot of fun. I’ve been doing that for so long I kind of gave up the idea of being a teacher.

Truth is, I don’t really know how to relate to young people anymore. I’m not an old koot who sits around talking about the kids today and how we did things “back in my day.” I just realize that I have my own life and interest, and those things are not shared with the youngsters.

So it is kind of strange that I am now finding myself as a substitute teacher.

I got the call early Monday morning. The teacher was stuck in Taiwan due to the typhoon and I was needed to substitute Monday through Wednesday. I arrived a little while later with no more information. I walked into the administrator’s office, was given some lesson plans the teacher had e-mailed over, a key to the office and was shoved in the general direction of the class.

That’s it. No instructions on discipline or class times or anything really. Here’s your key and your lessons, now go teach.

I arrived a few minutes before the kids and quickly looked over the plans. Homeroom is first. They come in for twenty minutes in the morning then scatter off to their first class. I was instructed to talk to them about typhoons.

The kids came in, loud and rambunxious. Immediately there was a chorus of “where’s Mr. Homestead?” Quickly though they settled down and took their seats. I explained where there teacher was and we started talking about typhoons. For the most part the class was really good. They were attentive and quiet and they all wanted to talk.

That first twenty minutes went by quickly and I was relieved that it went so well.

The bell rang and the kids got their stuff and lined up at the door. I sat at my desk and looked over the notes for what I was supposed to do next. I had no idea what was next, actually. I assumed a class would come in, but I didn’t know when and I didn’t know for how long.

Lost in those thoughts my kids got really quiet. Then there were whispered arguments. Finally someone piped up “are we dismissed?’

Oh, I guess I’m supposed to dismiss them. And so I did.

A few minutes later a new boy popped his head inside the classroom and asked if they could come in. Once I said yes, the whole lot of them came bustling in. I guess I’m not only supposed to dismiss class, but give the new ones permission to come in.

We were supposed to discuss different study techniques and they best ways to prepare for an exam. My notes were pretty well laid out, and so it was easy to follow. Again, these kids were mostly good. They were a little more involved with each other, and a couple of times I had to ask some of them to be quiet, but mostly they were attentive and wanted to talk.

One boy seemed intent on bragging. When I asked him where he usually studied, his answer came out “in front of my 27” widescreen LCD television.” Later when I asked when he studied he said something like “after watching a really funny movie, and playing a really violent video game.” Everything he said seemed designed to show how much cool stuff he had.

Later he mentioned that his parents lived in Canada and he was staying with his grandparents. Suddenly this made sense. I suspect his grandparents didn’t have the slightest idea how to control him, and his kept sending him expensive gifts because they felt guilty for shipping him to China.

Mostly though, the kids were good.

Another class ended and this time I dismissed them and invited the new bunch to come in. This class too was good, and I was getting the hang of maintaining control while encouraging everyone to talk.

It was after this second period that my wife came to visit. She also pointed out where the schedule was. Finally I had some idea of who was coming in and when.

The rest of my classes went really well. Fifth grade seems amazingly well behaved. There was only one other problem child, and he wasn’t that bad. Mainly he just wouldn’t pay any attention to either his classmates or me. He doodled, he did other homework, he chatted with his neighbors.

These are the kids I have no idea how to handle. Most kids realize that when they are talking they aren’t supposed to and thus a little talking too quiets them up. Most kids recognize an authority figure. This kid was either oblivious or didn’t care. I wanted to punch him in the face. I wanted to shake him hard. Mainly I left him a lone unless he got disruptive to the rest of the class. Then I’d ask him to be quiet, and he would. For about two minutes.

For day two I was to give them an assignment. They were to divide up into groups and prepare part of the chapter for a presentation. This was to help prepare them for the exam next week.

That was easy. I split them up, gave the instructions and then simply made sure they kept the noise levels down.

There were no problems at all in any class.

Wednesday was tougher. They had to give the presentations and I had to grade them. I don’t know how to grade. I don’t know what is a reasonable presentation for a fifth grader. I was lenient.

I have to admit I’m a little sad today not being in class. It was an exhausting, irritating experience in many ways. Sometimes I wanted to scream, storm out, and set fire to the bunch. Most of the time though they were a joy to talk to and laugh with and get to know.

Three days isn’t a very long time but I think I connected with some of those kids and that’s pretty special.

**Comments**

Sorry Jamison I cannot comment on the shanghai blog either. I can only comment on my midnightcafe blog.

The kids are mostly made up of employees from the company that built the school. It is an international company and thus the kids are very international. They have an english track and a chinese track. I taught at the english track so all of the kids spoke english. A lot of them are Chinese Americans, some of just regular Americans and a few come from other countries but have learned English in one way or another.

The New Midnight Cafe

2007-10-11T05:31:00.000-06:00

After I just wrote a comment saying that the blog is dead and that I won't be writing anymore, here I am writing. This is really just a pimp for my new blog, so don't get too excited.

After talking and talking and thinking about having my own webspace and url, I finally went and done it. The Midnight Cafe (http://www.themidnightcafe.org) is now formally open for business.

I had hoped to get some midnightcafe.org action, but unfortunately that url has already been taken. After more consideration I decided to add the "the" to the front. It is a little more awkward, but hopefully easy enough to remember.

I won't be writing any random personal bits at the Cafe (that still belongs to the Shanghai Cafe.) Basically I'll be writing my reviews and pop culture essays with a strong sprinkling of random links that I find interesting.

I like it, and I hope you guys will too.

PS Thanks to Kellie for working on the banner. Though it will probably still be worked on.

Baby born

2007-10-10T04:40:00.000-06:00

I got a call at 2:30pm yesterday (Tuesday) that Jodi's water had broke. I presume by this time a baby has been born. Pray for Chuck, Jodi, and baby. No news other than that.

**The following was written by Brewster who cannot make comments on blogspot blogs, and thus must make an addition here.***

Apologies to Charles and Jodi and the new baby. Don't mean to take up space on the announcement. But I did want to comment on Ryan's comment.

Basically Jamison got it right. There were only four of us who really ever did a lot of posting in the first place, and it seems we all have other things to do right now.

I hate to say that I told you so about this blog, but I kind of did. (PS Jamison I just used the "labels" to find that link.)

I really can't make any comments here anymore, well mostly. Every now and again China lets me view/comment on blogspot blogs, but it is random and rare. So as a general rule I simply can't. This makes me have no desire to post anything discussion worthy. This eliminates anything on politics or religion. That leaves either random fun links or personal things.

I have the Shanghai Cafe for personal things and The Midnight Cafe for the fun links.

I suppose I could post the personal stuff here too, but it seems redundant. If anyone is interested in my life in China just go there. If I thought there was a chance of revival here, I'd still double post. But really, at this point we're basically dead. Without the return of at least a couple of major players we'll remain that way.

So sorry Ryan, I don't know what to say. You are welcome to write posts here. And anyone else still reading is encouraged to write.

*****************

Keep it alive Jamison! I'll try to add some things soon. Not being able to comment sucks. I think I may just do it this way, or maybe I'll add a comment posts after the original post. Does adding comments to the post totally suck to everyone?

A new bully is in town

2007-10-04T13:52:00.000-06:00

Not sure how many of you even read this blog anymore. Hopefully, you are all lurkers, just not posters or commenters...

There is a different kind of bully at schools than the ones we were used to. And I have learned this from working at a school and it is kind of sad.

Gone are the days when a furrowed-brow bully would pick on a 'nerd' at school. At least in those days, the bully was 'brave' enough to confront someone face to face. Today's bully hides behind a keyboard and computer screen. Blogs, MySpace, Facebook, and the like are the new "playgrounds" where bullys pick fights. And why not? No parents, no teachers, no rules, and a host of other cowardly kids backing them up all the way.

No holds barred is the one rule on this playground. Language so harsh Jerry Springer would have to think twice before having them on as a guest on his show.

What happens these days is that one bully will decide one kid is fat for example), and say so on their page (whatever kind of page that may be). Parents are usually not as involved in their kids' lives as they once were, so parents don't see it (And some don't even care, as my experience has been), teachers and administrators only hear about it through other kids and parents (who wish to remain nameless as they prefer to fear a child bully rather than help a bullied child from being bombarded with self-confidence-destroying words), and so the cycle continues.

News stories abound about this kind of stuff. Just Google the words facebook bully school. You may find a story where some kids got expelled from posting horrible and horrific words and phrases of teachers and faculty members. The school felt justified as it was not only a private school, but in a round-about way, it violated their rules of conduct. However, many kids protested. Skipping class, pulling fire alarms to get more kids out of class and into the protest, and forcing the police to get involved.

So you have several ways to look at this. Protect children, or protect "Free Speech", But would my democratic friends consider "Hate Speech" to be "Free Speech"? It seems you can't say anything about homosexuals, African-Americans, or Latinos anymore in this country without losing your job. In essence, you are not allowed to be racists but more realistically, you are just not allowed to use certain words when refering to certain social groups... We are either confused about the phrase "free speech" or it no longer exists. I think it still exists, but there is a line. Kids ages 11 to 16 are venerable more than we remember ourselves being. Words DO hurt. It was one thing for us to be made fun of in class, or on the playground, but today, kids are being made fun on on the W O R L D wide web. And others who, in the past, would have stood idly by and let the bullying occur, now get into the act. Again, why not? No parents, no teachers, and they are hiding behind mask of, what they believe to be anonymity. I personally don;t think it is wrong for a school to get involved if students or faculty member are the target of hateful speech. Especially if the school is private.

Though, there is nothing anonymous about a private blog or networking site page. If ONE person can see it, it is no longer private. Printers can work miracles today, and so can pressing that handy little "Prt Scr" button on your keyboard. You know the one, the one you have probably never used?

On a related note, kids are just now starting to realize that employers and colleges that they seek to enter search the web for these applicants. In some cases before the first interview. See my latest articles on this subject here and here. Even if a kid wrote some "bully" type 5 years ago once they apply for a college, Google has this cool thing that can "cache" sites. I am afraid in the near future we will have a generation of hateful kids, many of which didn't get into the college they wanted to get into, or didn't get a job because they couldn't resist putting that video of them dancing drunk when they were 15 on YouTube.

Sorry for the downer, just raise your kids to be nice folks. Maybe we can beat this thing one family at a time.

Vent vs fan, silent film

2007-10-02T11:48:00.000-06:00

A comedic take on my sons new love

Deep and sweet thoughts

2007-09-27T08:34:00.001-06:00

If Starburst were to make a chocolate flavored Starburst, I bet it would taste just like a Tootsie Roll.

Awesome Picture Of Shanghai

2007-09-20T02:20:00.000-06:00

I didn't take this picture, and I'm afraid I don't know who did, but man, that's a nice shot.

A little history (since you asked.) The Huangpu river is a natural divider of Shanghai. I live in the Pudong are of the city which is east of the river (pudong literally meaning east of Haungpu.) This area is also known as the "new area" as it is a relatively newly developed part of the city.

Quite literally in the early 90s most of Pudong was in fact nothing more than rice fields and farm land. It was then that the city decided to give foreign investors something to do and it has grown by leaps and bounds over the last two decades.

This picture was taken from Pudong looking towards the main city. The tall glittery buildings you see in the foreground is the commercial district of Pudong, and the rest of Shanghai is across the river.

The big tower in the center of the picture is the Pearl Tower which is a very famous landmark in Shanghai. The area just beyond the river is known as the Bund which is a long stretch of buildings that is now mostly known for lots of shopping, but also contains many old school China architecture.http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

The skyline in Shanghai is absolutely gorgeous (when you can see it, for it is often obscured by the smog.)

And that's your lesson about the picture.

**Edit** I can't make comments so I'll just add an addendum here, and maybe someone will read it. Mullins I have talked about food. Several times. But it is over there on my shanghai blog. I tend to not post my China adventures here as I already post them there and it seems silly to double post. I mean, if you are interested just drop by there.

I guess if everybody would rather me post that stuff here, I can double up a few more interesting pieces.

Tech Tips for Parents

2007-09-17T16:38:00.000-06:00

Boy oh boy, talk about a quiet midnight at the cafe!
Well, thought I would share with ya'll what I have been working on.
I do a weekly e-newsletter for the parents of the school I work for. It has some basic computer tips and occationally, some ways to protect your kids better from online dangers. I will also include a relavent news article sometimes and I always provide a Dell coupon or special link (Dell sends me coupon codes and such that are actually pretty good deals. I pass it on to the parents... and now, you).

To save myself some time (and try to earn a few Goggle bucks) I now own and operate www.techtipsforparents.org

There you will fine a rough idea of what I am trying to accomplish, along with the archives of my last 10 or 15 articles.

Soon I will have a few how-to videos posted up on there.

The parents rave about this and love it, yet I can't get ANY of them to send me questions and concerns that they would like addressed :(

It is using WordPress code if anyone was wondering or interested.

The Stubbs pay a visit

2007-09-03T09:04:00.000-06:00

Our good friends the Stubbs paid a visit to central Alabama this long weekend. It was wonderful to see them and spend time with them. My only regret was that we were not able to spend MORE time with them. With the Sips having two boys, the Stubbs having a new boy, and us having a new boy, schedualing and visit times were limited. Plus, my in laws were in town staying at our home.

Even so, we were able to have dinner with them Friday night, cook out with them at the Sips Saturday night, and go to church and lunch with them Sunday.

Here are some videos made during the visit. The first video has a few greetings to our friends the Brews over in China...

The Midnight Cafe

2007-09-01T01:57:00.000-06:00

For about a year now I have been saying that I am going to buy some real webspace and get a regular URL for my blog. The reasons for this are many stemming mainly from my desire to have some real web real estate. My blog has grown to have a very decent hit count (I generate anywhere from 200 to700 unique visitors a day) and I think I can gain even more when I get out of the whole wordpress/blogger free spaces.

Now of course I won't be making mad money with it anytime soon, but a professional look coupled with some targeted writing could pay for my web space plus buy me the occasional Coke product. That's good enough for me.

I am super serious this time about getting web space this time. For about eight bucks a month I can get a .mac account which has more than enough space and add-ons to make it worth my while. I am telling everyone this because I need your help in the design department.

The first thing I need is a banner for the top of the blog. I am going to keep the name "Midnight Cafe" and as such the banner should reflect this. I am thinking maybe something in a dark blue (to represent the night sky) for a background color with yellow writing. I think maybe having some little stars mixed in would be good, and even that we could make the "c" in cafe look like a crescent moon.

I might like some little cocktail glasses and a baguette or something in there as well. I'm not all that set on that idea, but something to represent the cafe part of Midnight Cafe would be good.

I'm not really a design guy and I totally suck at drawing this type of thing, which is where you guys come in. Any of you creative types that has a moment of free time I would absolutely love it if you would make up some banners for me.

I know some of you could do it, and do it awesome, but I also realize you may not have the time.

Since China makes it impossible for me to comment on this blog, please submit the banners or ask any questions to my e-mail. Also, if anyone has any interest in helping me create the entire blog let me know.

Thanks gang.

Confession of a Work-At-Home-Mom

2007-08-30T11:27:00.000-06:00

I am guilty. I let the TV babysit my 3 year old son. Now don't get me wrong; I know what he's watching, and it's all educational, good stuff. Mostly PBS, Blue's Clues, Dora the Explorer. But the poor kid is literally transfixed by the magic box.

I used to be able to leave the TV on while he played and he'd glance up at it once in a while, but mostly he'd play with toys. But lately he's grouchy and wants nothing but TV. He doesn't even want to get dressed in the morning in case he'll "miss something."

I'm worried. But I don't know what to do. Luke is a high-maintenance kid. He doesn't play on his own very well or for very long. Even the baby (1 year old) plays on his own for longer and is much easier to take care of. And I have to work. So what's a mom/employee to do?

Don't Hold Your Breath

2007-08-28T19:34:00.000-06:00

I love my refrigerator. It's actually not as nice as the one in this picture here, but I'm not picky. I like my refrigerator so much that we brought it to Alabama when we moved from Georgia. And that's when we broke it.

Fortunately, we only broke my favorite-but-pretty-much-unnecessary feature, the in-door water & ice dispenser. For some reason, after we installed the refrigerator in our new home, getting a glass of water also necessitated wiping up a puddle of water from behind the fridge. So, we stopped using the water part. Goodbye, cold, filtered water. You will be missed.

So eventually I decided we should take a look at the leaky plastic tube to see how bad the damage was. We took off the front grill, wiggled the tube a bit, and lo-and-behold, it was simply loose from its fitting. Yay! We have cold filtered water again!

So now we get to the ice part of the equation. It works, to be totally honest. Always has. But it's not completely reliable. See, I have this quirk. Well, I have a lot of quirks, but let's stay focused here. I hold my breath while I'm waiting for that first kerplunk of ice into my glass. And this has become a problem, because sometimes that fridge just won't give up any ice. None. It does its grindy-groany thing, and even teases me with a little falling ice chip sound occasionally, but leaves me with an empty cup and unhappy lungs for great stretches of seconds at a time. I eventually give up and breathe. And then I really humble myself by opening the freezer door, reaching in, and actually physically gathering the ice myself! The humanity!

Well, at least I've thought of a new function for my fancy in-door ice maker. As often as it actually gives out ice, I'm thinking it would make a great slot machine.

Dr Katz does radio

2007-08-23T16:52:00.000-06:00

Jonathon Katz does a podcast you can download here for free:

http://www.jonathankatz.com/wkatz/

The first bit is about a word dominatrix... it will give a giggle to you English majors...

It should be a monthly thing. It is well worth a listen for us who love dry, dry, dry, dry, dry humor.

eBay reminds me why i won't have 6 kids...

2007-08-22T14:03:00.000-06:00

Here is a link to a real eBay item. The description is super entertaining. I think the price went so high just because she got so many hits. LOT OF POKEMON CARDS THAT MY KIDS TRIED TO SNEAK BY ME

Not the best post ever in teh blog, but good for a little laugh...

Sipper Speaks

2007-08-21T19:15:00.000-06:00

For all who might care to listen, here is a link to the Dalraida coC Website which contains a lesson I delivered on a recent Wednesday evening for the Summer Series. It's titled "The Gift of Song".

Everything Old Is New Again

2007-08-16T21:57:00.000-06:00

I think all of you have been to our house at sometime or other. Recently, we added some space onto our kitchen and knocked out some walls to make a nice, open layout between the family room and the kitchen. Here are some pics to show how the progress went, how much work was done, and how much space was added. My Dad was instrumental in most of the work. However, Rachel did quite a bit of the work, too, especially with installing the floors. We did this ALL ourselves, in other words.

Me playing a trick on my son...

2007-08-14T19:10:00.000-06:00

I was bored, work was slow, and he was awake and in a good mood... you would have done the same...

Crossing over

2007-08-13T13:53:00.000-06:00

The wife, myself, and the boy went to Chattanooga this weekend. No problems that would be considered unusual for travels with a 6 week old occurred. In fact, the drive up took only 30 minutes more than usual. The drive back, however, took a good 3 hours longer.

Being that we were so close to Knoxville, I would have considered it a crime to not at least invite the Mullins family to have dinner with my wife and I Saturday night. Being that we had grandparents to babysit our son, we figured we would go on a date.

I won't lie that at first, I was hoping the Mullins' would find a sitter for their boys. I wanted a little adult time. However, plans didn't pan out like I had hoped. Thankfully!

They came to my folks' home and took a look at Tyler. But only after Issac had peed in my parents front yard. The boys were with them and on their best male-Mullins-behavior. Afterwards, we all went to the Chattanooga Choo Choo. Not much to do there but look at real life trains that are no longer in use. Some fun restaurants there, including one that had singing waiters. But entertainment aside, the menu looked like any Ryans Steakhouse menu and wasn't anything special.

So I asked a gift store employee of some local favorites and he pointed me towards the Aquarium where there was a fine assortment of restaurants, including the one we ate at; Easy Seafood (Chefs nick name is Easy). The wait was 15 minutes, so we walked a block to the aquarium where there is a wide assortment of fountains, pools, and waterfalls that kids typically play in. One look at this from the Mullins boys and that's all she wrote. With their mother saying "don't get your shorts wet!" it seemed to only dare each of them to see how close they could get without getting water on their shorts to the point where Caleb was simply running straight through the fountain.

10 or 15 minutes later we go back to Easy and are seated. The food was great. Not a place I will make a bee-line to go to each time I go to Chattanooga, but if I have kids with me, i will. VERY kid friendly. Chalkboards, goldfish snacks for the kids, etc...

Afterwards, we found this huge waterfall of steps that loads of kids and families were cooling themselves off in. My brother takes his daughter here often. The kids loved it, to the point where my wife was telling me to take off my shoes and run down the stair of water to get Caleb before he hurts himself as he ran down these stairs without fear.

The night ended appropriately... as Larissa and I were leaving the parking deck, we passed the Mullins only to see their youngest completely naked by the car and loving every minute of it.

All in all I was very happy to have had their boys with us. Caleb is a hoot. He purposely will not look at a camera when you take his photo, which had me laughing alot. I have crossed over I think... from a childless guy who prefers to be with my friends without their kids around, to a parent who doesn't mind it so much anymore.

The Shanghai Cafe

2007-08-08T06:35:00.000-06:00

I created a new blog for my China adventures. After much deliberation I finally decided on the fairly lame name of The Shanghai Cafe. It seemed fitting as it is both where I am living and a nod to the old cafe.

It is a little sparse right no, obviously and won't be updated to much until we get internet in our home. But feel free to read and comment.

PS if the link doesn't work properly just click on my name and you'll find the blog. I'm working on a barely working connection and the site isn't pulling up for me at all.

Is it just me?

2007-08-07T09:01:00.000-06:00

Something hit me the other day and it kind of made me sad...

This whole parent thing has turned my world upside down. More so than I expected. But one thing I didn't expect would be that my social life would plummet to a near-zero level.

I mean, I expected the first few weeks to not go hang with folks, but he is 6 weeks old now and still a part of me just wants to stick close to home base.

I mean, after the Sips had Noah (If I remember correctly) they were happy to have us over to their home! I keep thinking in my mind all the peoples homes I want to go to and take Tyler along, or to invite people over, but when Friday or Saturday come, and I see that dishes need washing, clothes need washing, the house is a wreck, and not to mention the baby needs feeding in a few hours, I give up the thought, slip into my pajama pants, and roll up my sleeves (Assuming I am wearing a shirt) to get to work. And if we get to eat our meal along the way, that's just a plus.

Believe me Sip, we want to come to yalls home. We want to go to several folk's home and we want to have people over. But when does the fear of leaving home base end? Am I a freak for feeling this way? I mean, I have never been Mr. Socialite, but I do like to hang with my closest friends from time to time and it frankly feels like ages since I have done so!

Gross

2007-08-04T17:06:00.000-06:00

Breastfeeding is a beautiful thing for a woman to share with her infant. This, however, is just wrong.

Travels abroad

2007-08-04T13:20:00.000-06:00

With Brew leaving for a first-time traveling experience in literally hours, I thought I would post a blog being that I am in a somewhat similar "First time travel experience" situation as well...

My wife, child, and myself will all be going to my parents home in Tennessee this weekend. The idea is so that, of course, my mom and dad can spend time with thier grand son, and that my wife and I can go out that night.

Those without kids do not realize what a task this will be. Even as my wife and I decided yesterday that we would go take our son to visit them, the fullness of the situation didn't hit us immediately. And before I had this child, I would have just thought "Toss some diapers in a bag, a bottle, a jug of 1% milk and go". After having some dinner at home, we began to think it over. Thoughts turned to paper and pen, paper and pen turned into hands on head eyes widening.

Eventually my wife spoke up and said "Do you remember how Josh and Rachel had an entire suitcase for Luke when we went to Disney World and how we couldn't understand how a baby could need so much?" I agreed, and we both began to feel like the Sips actually packed light for their child on that trip...

So, rather than go in alone on this, I would take suggestions from the panel of experts at my disposal. I know there are a great many men my age with kids reading this. Those who frequent this blog, I expect nothing less than advice. Those lurkers out there, feel free to comment. Women, of course, are welcome to comment just as much as the men.

It is becoming all too clear in my mind that it will be alot more convenient for my parents to visit us for the next year or so than for us to visit them, though, the drive must be made, and often... adults can turn insane when they are turned into grand parents.

Research and Development gone lazy...

2007-08-03T13:48:00.000-06:00

If you have seen any commercials for cleaning products these days, you know the buzz word is "Disposable". Everything is disposable and everything makes cleaning "Easier". Which is all well and good for me. However, we still live in the dark ages in my home. We have an up-right vacuum, a broom, and a dust pan. We took a huge leap and recently bought a dust mop.

Waste and environmental concerns aside, this is fine and good with me, but I saw one product on TV today that absolutely blew my mind...

Endust disposable dust cloths. Or, as I like to call them "Paper towels". I could understand if there was, like, Endust built into it, but there isn't. The commercial instructs you to "Spray on Endust, wipe with the disposable cloth, then, just throw it away!"... just like I do with paper towels.

Here is the claim:

For $5 you get 10 12x12 cloths that the company doesn't even pretend to claim are reusable... How many rolls of paper towels can you buy for $5? The marketing campaign is to "Hold on to your favorite tee shirt" assuming people dust with a tee shirt. I can;t tell you how many times I was found curled in the fetal position of my closet by my wife, hugging my favorite shirt, hoping that there would be someone to invent a way that I could dust without this shirt. And God forbid that we had to (gasp) throw the shirt in the washing machine after we were done! "Endust Dust Cloths eliminate the need to store and wash dirty rags for dusting" And we all know how much room a dust rag takes up, what with how contractors are making homes SO much smaller.

I mean, am I missing something? Do they do something that I am not aware of? Are paper towels damaging my bed side table? Is it no longer fashionable to dust with a washable rag, much less keep washable rags in the house at all?

I mean, how dumb can we get, people? If anyone has bought these, they must make themselves known.

Four Days

2007-08-02T09:42:00.000-06:00

Four days from this moment I will be flying over some part of Canada heading north and west. We leave Tulsa in the wee hours of the morning to Chicago. From there it is all the way to Shanghai. Twenty odd hours of travel, 14 from Chicago to Shanghai.

That's a long time no matter how you shake it. I've loaded my carry on with books and magazines. I've checked the airline for what movies will be showing. The iPod contains some 18,000 songs, several audio books, two movies and a television program. I'm going to carry some Tylenol PM with me so that I might sleep a few hours, and heavier prescription sleep medicine in case I decide to knock myself out.

We are mostly ready to go. The bags have been packed and repacked and repacked. We have a box of winter clothes to mail. And some reserve books in boxes in case we need to mail those. We have scanned a million articles and books to help Amy with her research. We have loaded every song we've ever heard on to the hard drives. We have chosen books and movies to take. We have had long debates over which clothes to pack, what toiletries we'll need, etc.

We already have an apartment there. Brian and Bethany took a gander at it and said it was ok, it even has an American toilet and a real bathtub. They have bought us a bed, couch, comfy chair, kitchen table and other things. We will stay in a hotel for a few days while all of this is moved in, but soon should be settled.

The school pays for the hotel, will reimburse us 80% of our flight and give us a grand to help settle in.

I'm nervous. Nervous as crap. And yet I am so ready to go and get it done. This waiting around is killing me. I know we will have a good time. I know it will be a meaningful experience. I have no idea what to expect.

I plan to create a new blog just for my daily ramblings about china. I'll keep my regular blog up for the pop culture explorations, and the occasional long form essay about life, but I figure it's better to have a separate one for the normal day-to-day activities.

Any suggestions on what cool, quirky, ironic name I should give this blog?

Of course I'll keep you guys up to date here as well, even if it is just a link over to my place.

Also I don't know when I'll get an internet connection over there, so I may be intermittent for awhile.

HP7: Spoiler Warning!!!

2007-08-01T13:28:00.000-06:00

OK, Jamison gave us the go-ahead to discuss HP stuff within the comments. On your mark, get set, Expeliarmus!!!

Love Note: A Rock

2007-07-31T07:39:00.000-06:00

On our trip (mentioned in my last post) we picked up a couple of souvenirs for family members. One of the gifts we bought was a small bag of colorful rocks from the Native America store in downtown Athens. Luke, as most three-year-olds do, loves rocks, so we thought he’d love them. We were not disappointed.

When we brought them home to him, he immediately pulled out his treasure box and began placing them into it. Then he started picking out his favorite rocks and pretending they were different food items. One looked like a plate and one was red like spaghetti sauce. One of his favorites was a beautiful chartreuse color and was shaped like a glass. He held it and played with it and pretended to drink from it.Yesterday at work, I was sitting at my desk, eagerly anticipating time to leave and go to the zoo with my family when I felt something poking me in my left butt cheek. I reached in my back pocket and pulled out the rock Luke had placed in there, unbeknownst to me. I immediately began to laugh/cry with joy at the beautiful little way my son said, “I love you, Daddy,” with his favorite rock.

My First Massage

2007-07-31T07:22:00.000-06:00

My wife and I took a trip last weekend. We had been planning a getaway for practically since Luke was born and finally got our chance. My wonderful wife booked the nicest room in a new hotel for us with a hot tub, king-sized bed, right next to the pool, etc. She also, after asking me my opinion, scheduled a couple’s massage for us at a nice spa just a mile up the road from our hotel.

Before I go any further, I need to make it known that I have never had a professional massage before. I am the sort of person who doesn’t particularly care to be touched by someone I don’t know. So, I felt a little weird about going in for something like this, even though my wife would be receiving the same treatment in the same room. Another item of note is the fact that I have an extremely high tolerance for pain, so I don’t feel things the way most people do and I have to be careful about how I do things since I will hurt myself and not realize it.

So, Friday morning we wake up refreshed, hit the free breakfast bar, and head out for our massages. We arrive, fill out forms explaining any ailments, medications, or recent surgeries (I noted my vasectomy on the sheet) and then waited a couple of minutes while the therapists prepared to work on us. We were almost immediately greeted by our therapists and taken back to a small, dimly-lit room with two massage tables. They looked comfy and soft. My therapist was a slightly overweight woman named Amber. Rachel was to have her muscles smooshed around by a bearded fellow by the name of Jim. They both smiled warmly and reassured us of their desire to make us feel comfortable. Then they told us to take off our clothes and left the room.

Rachel and I disrobed quickly and slid into the smooth warmth of the massage tables, face down. We both commented on how nice it was to use the face cradles and lie flat. It was very nice. Then, the therapists entered the room. New Age music was immediately audible at their entrance. It partly annoyed me at first, then relaxed me once I decided this was not the time to be anal about music.

Amber began. She squirted an odorless oily substance into her hands and began work on my back. The first touch was fine, but my initial reaction was to laugh because it tickled so much. Rachel had signed us up for a deep tissue massage instead of the more, circulation/relaxation driven Swedish massage. But, I wasn’t feeling the deep-tissue feeling I expected. However, being it was my first massage, I waited and let her continue.

Unfortunately, I found myself under a type of tickle torture I had never before experienced. Every touch was like a feather being dragged along my sensitive spine. At first, I tried to hold in the laughter. My body tensed and skook. Amber stopped, “Are you alright, Josh?” “Oh, sure. Fine. Feels great! I just feel like I want to make sounds.” “Oh, um, ok.” For the entire back portion of the massage, I held back my laughter: something I am not used to doing, ever.
Finally, she moved to my legs. My right leg was bared. She oiled her hands. The moment she made the first rub, I cackled, jerked, rolled. I couldn’t control myself. Laughter cascaded from me as urine from an ACPO member. Amber and Jim initially seemed confused, but Rachel’s laughter seemed to give them confidence that I was just like that. Finally, I told Amber that she needed to press harder and that she had been tickling me mercilessly the whole time. She apologized to the inadvertent torture and proceeded to press harder. She pressed as hard as she could for the rest of the massage. And I laughed as hard and long as I have laughed in a long time.

Afterward, we went to the front of the parlor to pay for the relaxation. The receptionist was smiling and asking what exactly we were doing back there. Everyone in the lobby had heard my laughter from the back of the place. I doubt I will get another massage for a long time. I enjoyed it, but I don’t think it was worth the money. I expected the therapeutic effects to last at least a week, but alas they lasted only the rest of that day. Not good enough for what we paid. But, the effects of the laughter on my spirit and the relaxation and buoyancy I felt may have been.

My night with Hydrocodone

2007-07-30T07:39:00.000-06:00

A few months ago, I had an ingrown toenail removed. The surgeon did not give the medicine enough time to fully numb my toe so I was screaming in pain through most of the surgery.

As a result, the doctor felt sorry for me and gave me a perscription for Hydrocodone; a stong pain killer that blocks the pain feeling from the brain. It turned out that my toe healed nicely and I never used any of the pills. It was interesting that at the pharmacy, they asked for my social security number because of the highly addictive nature of the pill.

I have kept the pills, since you never know when you may really hurt yourself, but have never used them. I gave some to some friends suffering from neck and back pain that their chiropractor was not able to fix, but mostly they have sat unused.

Saturday night, i decided to take half of one. They are easy to break in half. My justification was that we had driven to Birmingham that afternoon for someones baby shower. The drivers seat in my wifes car kills my back after an hour of sitting in it. In addition, holding a baby can stress ones muscles out more than you would think. I took hald of one at about 10pm and laid down to sleep. Here are some things I noticed about it...

Dreams; I remember NONE of my dreams that night. This is HIGHLY unusual for me. That is no sign of deep sleep for me. In fact, I woke up often hearing the baby cry. And when I got out of bed to walk, I was not dizzy or confusded or 'drunk' like I get with a muscle relaxer.

Thirst; I would wake up with the DRIEST mouth I have ever had. I could have drank a gallon of water if it was near me. My skin also felt very dry.

Dizziness: I wasn't dizzy at all. Nor did I feel "drugged" throughout this period.

Numbness; The interesting thing is that my body did NOT feel numb and it did NOT feel relaxed. As I woke up to pee around 2 or 3 am, I tested its effectiveness. I have a fever blister in my mouth. Always hurts to touch it with my tounge since it formed a few days ago. I touched it with my tounge as I walked to the potty and an immediate 'numb' feeling took the place of the normal pain. When I stopped pressing the sore, the numb feeling went away. I tried to pinch myself with my long index fingernail that I had yet to cut off. No pain, just a quick numb feeling.

It was kind of scary. Got up, went to church, and in church, I tried a few pain tricks again and the numbing thing still happened. This went on till about 10 or 11am Sunday.

So for about 12 hours, half a hydrocodone kept me from feeling any pain. I mean, I KNEW I was hurting myself (relatively) but the pain wasn't there.

So in case you care to take any Hydrocodone for pleasure, I am here to tell you that it really isn;t that fun. And not as relaxing as a muscle relaxer is. Or even an anti-inflamatory for that matter. And no, I don't have any left to give you. All trashed.

The Long And Dirty Tale Of The 35" Televison

2007-07-26T19:06:00.000-06:00

Shortly after my brief affair with graduate school I landed myself a well paying job. I was young. I was single. I was making a lot more money than I had ever made in my life.

I bought a large, bulky 35" Sanyo television. This was long before flat screens and wide screens and easily lift able televisions. The thing was massive, weighed a ton and because of the shape of the tube it was incredibly difficult to hold onto.

But it showed a wonderful picture and it was nice and big to look at. I loved it.

Well I loved it, until I had to move anyways, and then I cursed at its weighty bulkiness. My poor father in law has helped me move it half a dozen times and every time he threatens to drop it accidentally-on-purpose.

With the China move I decided to sell it. I was tired of moving it, we had no room to store it and I figured with the money we'd make over seas I could afford a new one when we got back.

I posted it on local boards and a few national internet places as well. I put the price low and promised I could go lower for the right story. As I am forgetful and lazy and a procrastinator, none of this happened until about three weeks before we had to move.

Desperate is the word.

About a week into it I got an odd phone call. The call was from a third party operator who told me he had someone on the other line who was making the call, but who was on a keyboard. This person would type something, and then the operator would read it to me. I then responded and the operator typed out what I said.

At the end of each statement I made I had to say "go ahead" as the signal that I was done talking.

Sounds easy enough, and it was, except I kept forgetting to say "go ahead" and there would be these long pauses interrupted by the operator asking if I was done. Or sometimes there would be a long pause where the other guy had expected more out of me and he would ask me if I was still there.

At the time I thought he was just using some internet dealie instead of calling, perhaps to save on long distance, but now I guess he was hearing impaired.

Still we agreed on a price, and we arranged to set up details via the e-mail.

I sent the pricing and instructions on how to deliver. And waited.

And waited.

Just as I was getting perturbed, he e-mailed back. It sounded like all things were go, but to be honest the e-mail was so full of spelling and grammar mistakes, I wasn't sure what he was really saying. There was something about him needing to locate his shipper and something else about Western Union. To be honest again, it started to sound like a scam, but again it was so horribly written I couldn't be sure. I wound up replying that it was all ok and to simply let me know when he was ready.

More days passed and I sent another e-mail explaining I was leaving very soon and needed to get the sale completed by the next week. He e-mailed me saying he was sorry and that I would have the payment early the upcoming week. Again all the e-mails were poorly written and didn't make a lot of sense, but again I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

I got a few other responses but ignored them as I hoped this original one would come through.

About Wednesday I gave up and offered it to the church. After much discussion they arranged to have some stout fellas pick it up. We hobbled it down the stairway, nearly dropping it twice and I was finally done with the TV.

On Saturday, after we were already in Indiana I received an e-mail from dude asking me if I had received his payment. Suddenly his words were very clear and the deal he had tried to make with me was that I would cash his check and contact his shippers. For some reason he said he was unable to get his payment to the shippers in time so he sent "extra" to me. I was supposed to then go to Western Union and make the shippers payment via that service out of my own money - the payback was already in his check to me you see.

Scam city. I'm certain his check would have later bounced and he'd be walking away with my good payment to the shippers. I even suspect he would be the shipper and the whole weird phone call is so that I would not recognize his voice when he arrived for pick up.

I decided to not respond to his e-mail. The only things I could think of to say were rude, rude and socially unacceptable. As I had already given him information about me I didn't want to piss him off and make him do something harsh or illegal to my personage. There was also a small nagging part of me that thought maybe he was hard off and on the up and up and I didn't want to crush the poor guy.

He e-mailed me again the next day and I decided to write a polite letter explaining he was too late, that I had given it away, and that I would never pay his shippers as it sounded like a scam. Then I said don't contact me again.

He hasn't, but I still feel mad and dirty.

Let them eat cake

2007-07-23T13:26:00.000-06:00

For my birthday, my wife surprised me with a strawberry cake... but not just any strawberry cake...

Back when my Granny was still alive and when I was much younger, she would bake me a homemade strawberry cake. Everything was homemade, right down to the strawberries that she grew herself (I fear memories like this will belong to fewer and fewer people as the years move on, but that's an entirely different blog.)

Granny never had a recipe for this cake. She never had a recipe for anything, but they always turned out wonderfully.

An aunt of mine managed to recreate Grannys strawberry cake and commit the recipe to paper. When I found this out, I asked for the recipe and we have had it for many years.
Larissa made said cake for me for my birthday. Sure, she didn't grow the strawberries, and the actual CAKE was from a box, but she did make the divinity icing from scratch.

Thought I would share the wonderful beauty of this cake!

Pictures Of World War I

2007-07-17T19:58:00.001-06:00

I've recently become fascinated with World War I. There have been so many movies made, and words printed about World War II that it seems like the first one gets over looked. Perhaps thats because the reasons behind fighting WWII are more compelling and understandable, while the Great War is kind of muddled. Perhaps it is because more people are still alive that survived the second one. Maybe it is due to some other reason, I don't know. Whatever the reasons it is certainly more easy to find information on the second war than the first.

However, whenever I read about the first war, in some ways it seems even more horrific, disgusting and hellish than the second.

Photographic Hieght/Weight Chart

2007-07-16T12:55:00.000-06:00

Very interesting and kind of cool little chart. Basically they have a graph breaking down a group of heights and weights and then anybody can add a photo of them self for that particular weight/height. It is kind of a cool way to see what other people in your own category look like. I wish they had a way where you could look at a picture and then guess their height/weight, but I guess this is a more serious exercise.

Harry Potter Speculation

2007-07-15T07:05:00.000-06:00

I just went back and read Sipper's post, "Harry Potter Must Die" from October of last year. I must admit at the time I skipped that post entirely, and any comment about Harry Potter as I had not yet read any of the books or seen the movies (though I did read comments about other subjects.

I now want to comment on that post, plus add a few of my own speculations to the pile. Obviously I have now read all six available books and I watched the Order of the Phoenix last night.

Harry Potter shall not die. Sipper speculates (and I'll not comment on the fact that this speculation was coming from a man who had not yet read the books and could have only seen the first four films at that time) that Harry will, and in fact must, die by the end of the last books. His main points are that Rowling is writing in the tradition of Tolkein and Lewis and that they both knew, and therefore Rowling must also know that the only way to end a great fantasy is to allow their characters to die or go to heaven.

Now I have not actually read any of the Narnia books all the way through, and I am only familiar with the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, so I cannot comment too much on him, but I have read the Lord of the Rings series.

However I must immediately differ in opinions with Mr. Sipper. In the famous Lewis book, it is true that the main character, the lion king Aslan dies. However, like Jesus he comes back to life to save the day by books end. I think it is safe to say that Harry won't be resurrected in these books as he is not the Jesus figure. Perhaps I am missing something from the other books, and feel free to argue that out with me.

In LOTR though, almost everyone lives. In fact there is a long prologue discussing the long lives they all live after Mordor is destroyed. I suspect the argument is that the elves and Gandalf, etc all go away into some mystical land that is really heaven. Good arguments can be made for that allusion, and I don't want to argue them, but I don't see this as a real death finishing off the characters, but a way for them to move on and have a happy ending. There is a lot more too that, but I'll leave it vague for now.

Mainly though I don't think Rowling is in the same league as Tolkein and Lewis. She simply isn't as good a writer. Tolkein was writing very serious literature in the vein of a fantasy novel. Lewis was writing religious allegory. Rowling is writing pop fantasy. It is good pop fantasy, but I wouldn't really elevate it to great literature status.

She writes for the reader, and her readers will revolt if Harry dies. And even though her readers now include millions of adults, her books have always been essentially for children. Death of Harry is a very big blow to the kids. Having him die in battle will bring no real victory for him, and though she makes mentions of ghosts and a vague afterlife, there has been no strong foretelling of a heaven like place as in LOTR.

The prophecy also essentially says that Harry and Voldemort must battle and that only one will live. That's a crummy prophecy if both of them wind up dying. No, I think Harry will live to see the end of the book. I will say he might wind up living a difficult, sorrowful life after much like Frodo. But I kind of doubt that too.

But this long diatribe isn't just about Harry, but some of his gang too.

Dumbeldore shall rise again. Rowling has stated she is a fan of Lewis and partially modeled on the Narnia books. Dumbledore is the obvious leader and is a God-like character so he is a good choice to rise from the dead. Although I've never seen any official acknowledgment, he has always reminded me of Gandalf, whom as we know also came back from a grave, of sorts.

Then there is the phoenix, Dumbeldore's pet bird. It constantly dies and is reborn in a bit of fire. Remember then Dumbeldore's funeral where a great big fire arose out of his grave and the bird also flew over. Seems like a good allusion to Dumbeldore coming back.

He was also very interested in learning all he could about Voldemort, and especially his ability to be reborn so to speak. I think Dumbeldore has learned that magic and will come back from the grave just as Harry most needs him.

Snape is totally a good guy. His killing of Dumbledore was not only intentional, but demanded by Dumbeldore himself. When you read the end of the sixth book it read as though Dumbeldore was surprised by Snape and was overpowered by him. But if you read it in the context of Dumbeldore wanting to die, then the conversation reads more like Dumbeldore demanding Snape kill him while Snape tries to get out of it.

Sirius, I think is dead for sure, but I suspect he will come back in some form. Maybe as a ghost who helps Harry out in some way, like giving information. Though he might be more like Yoda in Star Wars.

I'm also going to state for the record that Ginny is going to bite it. We need another main character death, but we've come to love the rest of the Weasleys too much. Ron and Hermione have to fall in love so they are out. But Harry and Ginny will become much closer, she will fight bravely but will get smited. That way we have another good death, Harry suffers even more, and the fans can still take it.

Well, that was long, and it was written in two sessions, so my apologies if it seems disjointed. Mainly I wanted to get some HP discussion going.

Waiting on Harry Potter

2007-07-14T21:26:00.000-06:00

Here is some footage of Sip and I as we waited to see the harry potter movie whos time got bumped up and left us waiting around doing nothing. But it was good to just sit, talk, and watch people for a while...

Greatest. Jeans. Ever.

2007-07-13T11:56:00.001-06:00

Look how they getcha! That's how they getcha!

2007-07-13T08:10:00.000-06:00

This is one of my most favorite scenese from Dr Katz EVER. I just posted it on my YouTube channel. I know Brew will get a kick out of this, but to this day, Sip and I still will shoot out a few phrases from this bit and laugh, while others (ussually our wives) look on confused, or ignore us. Don't eat the bread!

5 minutes of laughter

2007-07-11T20:26:00.000-06:00

Mitch Hedberg. A regular on some later season Dr. Katz episodes. I got bored on youtube last night and looked him up. Hilarious. Dude is dead, did drugs pretty much his whole life.... well, weed I am sure at least. I think he got clean the last few years of his life, but still died, I am sure, of over use. In any case, he tells jokes, unlike other stand ups who sort of trick you into thinking they are telling you a 5 to 10 minute long story that is supposed to all flow together. Mitch just acts like he is thinking up funny things off the top of his head. And if ANYONE else said his jokes, they wouldn;t be funny. They need that sort of "high" feel to them to be funny. All clean jokes, here... enjoy, 5 minutes long. Worth it.

That's One Bad Anaconda

2007-07-11T16:14:00.000-06:00

We'll Never Get Out Of This Place

2007-07-10T14:44:00.000-06:00

The furnace at our apartment has not worked properly since last November. Over the winter the heat worked sporadically. It would blow hot air for maybe thirty minutes and then the air would turn coolish - not really cold, but not enough to properly heat either. After a few hours we could turn the heat back on and it would be warm again.

As our winter was mostly mild, and the thirty minutes was enough to keep the house relatively warm, and I'm not afraid of a bit of cold weather I never complained about it.

As it turned warm, however, we have learned out AC does not work either. In the Spring when we first needed to use the coolness of the air conditioner, we found that the unit wasn't really producing cold air. It was more like a perpetual fan. At first I didn't complain about this, because it wouldn't really bother me so much until night, and by then the office was closed. Then the next day would wind up being cooler and everything was OK.

For awhile.

Eventually there were several warm days in a row and I complained. Nothing really happened, but it would again get cooler and I would let it passed. This series - warm weather hitting, me complaining, nothing being done, cool weather - reoccurred several times over a couple of months.

Then it got very warm, and I complained a lot. Then the stories began coming. The maintenance man would look at it, adjust something and think he had it fixed. The problem was he would come on days that weren't too terribly hot and feel the air coming trough the vent and decide it was cool air, when in fact it was more like fan air.

It would get warmer, I'd complain more, he'd come back and adjust something else. This went on for a few weeks. Then he needed to order a part, but our units are so old finding parts are difficult. There were a lot of things said, and I won't flat out call them lies but in the end a lot of things didn't happen like they said they would.

Eventually the mystery part came and our air did work.

For awhile.

And by work I mean there was cool air, but it was weird. If I set the temperature gage at something normal, say 70 degrees, when the actual temperature arrived near that temperature, the pipes would freeze.

The only way the unit would work is if we ran it down at 50 degrees. Sweet cold air flowed. And flowed. And flowed. We would wake up in the middle of the night and it would be like 54 degrees inside. I worked out a system where I would run it like that then turn off the unit. It wouldn't get warm again until late in the afternoon the following day at which time I would crank it back down again.

This lasted maybe a month. One day the air was only semi-cool. It would get the temperature to about 72 degrees but no lower. Then the next day it was back to fan air again.

I complained everyday for a week and finally the maintenance came out and recharged the unit. It was cool for a day and then went back to fan air.

That was three weeks ago. Everyday I have complained since then. Everyday they tell me they will get it fixed.

It is currently 80 degrees in my apartment. This is cool to me now, as usually at this time it is close to 90 degrees. It rained today though, so it is a little cooler.

A few side notes:

The maintenance man is not certified. He likes to tinker with the units, but is not really qualified to fix them. Until yesterday they had never thought to call a qualified, certified HVAC person. The maintenance man also likes to take his time. If he says he'll be by in the morning we're lucky to see him the next day. He is horrible at communications too. He comes in, piddles with the switches then leaves for long stretches. He never tells us what he's doing.

He also doesn't tell the staff what he is doing, as they never, ever know.

The staff is incompetent. There are at least half a dozen girls working in the office. They work 9 in the morning to 8 at night, but there shifts are strange and interchangeable. They don't communicate together. So when one day I tell one girl the problem she will swear it will get fixed. To prove it she writes it down on a little pad. But then the next day I come to complain it isn't fixed another girl is sitting there and has no idea what I am talking about.

On and on it goes. At this point since I have been complaining every single day for three weeks a couple of the girls know me, and one of them remembers my problems, but the other one knows who I am but not my problem.

They all look at me like I'm crazy when I complain that it is freaking hot in my apartment.

The manager is certifiable. I'd guess she was in her 40s but it is hard to tell. She is full of wrinkles and her skin is full of leather. She is one of those ladies who spent her formative years fake baking in a tanning booth so that now her skin looks terrible. She is also one of those ladies who doesn't understand this concept.

I have never seen her in anything then a very short skirt with a top that squishes her breasts together and pokes them out. Today, I kid you not, her skirt was maybe 2 inches from her butt cheeks, it was see through enough to reveal her under garmets and I saw more leathery cleavage than I would ever wish upon a man.

Yesterday, a poor girl who I have only seen once before got a bit of my wrath. I demanded a real HVAC guy and she had to call the maintenance man twice. Promises were made that a real one would be here tomorrow at 2 in the pm.

It is currently five and no one has showed. Half an hour ago I saw the manager who had no idea what I was talking about. She was however, very concerned about her dog. She pointed me in the direction of the maintenance guy who was working on his truck. I had to go talk to him by myself. He promised the AC guy would be here today because, and I quote "he gets paid today."

When I asked him if he could make sure this man would check on my unit he gave a very vague response and then made an inside joke to his partner.

We are moving to Oklahoma soon. Our furniture is already moved out, but Amy needs to do some things at the library so she'll have materials for her dissertation. I'm ready to burn the place down and forget about it all.

Sorry for the long rant, but I'm super pissed but am such a weenie that I can't really curse the apartment people out.

The Great Neutralizer

2007-07-08T18:49:00.000-06:00

How's Larissa... How are you... How's the baby...?

FINE! FINE! FINE! FINE! FINE! FINE! FINE! FINE! FINE! FINE! FINE! FINE! FINE! FINE! FINE!

There... I feel better.

At work, and at church, the 3 questions you see above are what i get asked on a continual basis... almost as if the people I go to church with and work with are on some sort of question-shift where there must always be someone asking me those questions.

Don;t get me wrong, they are sweet and lovely people for being concerned no doubt. But the funny thing is that one lady at work sees me every day, and will ask me those questions each time she sees me... sometimes (no lie) she will see me, ask the questions, then see me a few hours later and ask again!

My answer is ussually a smile, and "Fine, thank you for asking."

Tonight at church, I dropped the "thank you for asking" and just said "Fine." Sometimes with a smile.. Eventually, someone that asked me earlier heard me say "Fine" to someone else. She said "Thats's all he keeps saying about it!" To which I replied "There are 500 people at this church, if I stopped to give them all a run down on my days I would be here all day." Okay, they know that "That's just Jamison" but some found me to be quite rude. I dont think people are used to hearing people tell them what they think without censorship.

The funny thing, is that I know how alot of these people are. If I said "Oh, he is a dream baby! He never cries, sleeps 6 hours at night, eats like a charm without fussing, doesn't kick like a black-belt in karate when I try to change his diaper..." they would say "Just wait till he is 3 weeks old" or 4 weeks, etc...

If I said "Oh my, he is terrible, he poops all day long, it stinks, it gets on me, he cries like a ring wraith when he feeds, and I only get 59 minutes of sleep a day" They would all say "It will get better."

So, in a way, the "How are things?" people really just want to nuetralize you. If things are going good, then wanna bring you down a notch. If you are doing poorly, they want to lift you up. I give them no such satisfaction so I just say "Fine."

A side note, a gal at church who has a 6 month old never asked me how things were going though mom and I sat next to them. But after church she asked if she could call us or come by this week. To which I responded "That would be wonderful."

FYI, the photo on this blog was not staged or planned. My wife took it unbenounced to me. We let Ty sleep with us for a few hours each night. Either first thing as we go to bed or after his last feeding of the night (4am-ish).

Oh, and by the way... things are fine.

Cat Wake-up Call

2007-07-03T12:34:00.000-06:00

Sorry to interupt the baby talk, but this is semi-appropritate as a cat is as close to having a baby as I'm going to have...for awhile.

I no longer need an alarm clock anymore for I have a cat. Every morning anywhere from 6 to 8 in the am, my cat Thumbelina, decides it is time for me to get up. Her first measure of offense to get me out of bed is simple pouncing. She jumps up onto my bed, and then onto my body, usually with another jump.

If she is lucky this is met with a simple “umph” from myself, followed by a gentle swat to get her off of me.

If my wife is not so lucky, Thumbelina dodges my swat with a giant leap off of me and onto the wife’s belly. This is followed by a large “oooooowwwww!” from my wife and a not so gentle swat to the cat.

This usually gets rid of the cat for ten minutes or so.

Just like a snooze alarm, she comes back for more.

Often the jumping/swatting routine is repeated several times. As I ease into awaked-ness I am less likely to swat the cat away as to simply let her be. What this means for the cat is that she begins to crawl across my body.

I am typically a side sleeper, as sleeping on my belly isn’t comfortable and sleeping on my back makes me snore and gives me nightmares. So, the cat tends to start somewhere near my middle, crawling across my hips onto my ribcage and sometimes up to my shoulders. Most of this is quite uncomfortable and eventually I make the roll over to get her off which usually makes Thumbelina jump onto Amy again and we start the snooze process all over again.

After all of this Thumbelina still has one more move to get me out of bed. She no longer tries to walk on me to get me up, but rather nuzzles up beside me. Take this morning for example – after jumping on me a time or two she crept up towards my hands and gently bumped them with her head.

Thumbelina is very much a lap-cat and when she cannot find a lap on which to cuddle, she rubs her head gently upon a part of my body. While lying in bed early this morning, this is exactly what she did to my hand – with a little nasty addendum.

She nuzzles the hand briefly as if to let me know she means no harm, and then she brings out the claws. Internally I’m thinking – oh how nice a little head but to let me know she loves me – and then she scratches the crap out of me.

Actually it isn’t too bad a scratch as more of a letting me know she can get violent if I don’t get up soon. Like a trained killer she doesn’t scratch my skin to leave any evidence, but gives me just enough pain to give me a warning.

This garners a pretty big swat. But she isn’t through. Oh no, if I am still not up she comes back with more head cuddles and menacing scratches.

At this point I either throw her out of the room and shut the door (knowing full well she will only scratch at the door) or I actually get up and feed her or let her outside or do whatever it is she wants.

She’s a crafty one that cat of mine.

Tyler pics

2007-06-30T11:18:00.001-06:00

Of course, I have to show him off...

Go here for all the pics...

http://community.webshots.com/album/559686630hSxJjc#

Love you all very much, thanks for the prayers. Sorry if I am short with any one of ya'll. My body had gotten used to more than one hour of sleep per night, so it is having to adjust a bit... :)

The Origin of Harrison

2007-06-28T12:25:00.000-06:00

This is the story of Harrison’s birth. Diana’s part is italicized, Charlie’s is not.

Diana was ready to get the baby out. Our doctor had told us before that it completely safe to induce labor if we so desired. Diana had made up her mind that she wanted to do just that, even though the baby was due in just four days. (If you doubt Diana’s determination, I have videotape of her waddling to the stage, eight months pregnant, to receive her college diploma.) He loves to brag on me. I was also getting anxious to see what all the fuss was about, especially after a frustrating bout of false labor a few days earlier. So we called and made an appointment with the OBGYN to get induced.

After the usual check-up, the nurse checks to see how dilated Diana is. The nurse pulls out her fingers, and there is blood on them. Diana says, “I know what that means!” The nurse left the room to go check with the doctor. I had no idea what was going on. Diana tells me (and the doctor later confirms) that she is already in the first stage of labor. Well, that’s a relief, I thought ... although in retrospect, I was nowhere near relief.

We had to kill some time before going to the hospital (so they could be ready for us), so we made some phone calls and went to see Diana’s dad since he works nearby. He manages a K & W (a cafeteria-style restaurant). Diana had pie (I’m in labor and that’s all I can think about. Pie.), and I had some french fries because we had breakfast before going to the OBGYN. Diana’s dad was, of course, excited.

We got to the hospital about noon, filled out the forms, were escorted to our room, and waited. The doctor came shortly thereafter and broke my water. Then she told us to walk around. Our hospital is a little on the small side, so there was only so much of that we could do. Diana had some mild contractions, but nothing to get excited about. After a couple of hours, it was decided that medication was needed to speed up the whole contraction process. The small bit of Pitocin they gave me was just enough to remind my body of what it was supposed to be doing.

Once the medication began to take effect, the contractions were definitely stronger. I was no longer sitting on the sidelines, either playing my DS or reading Wizard. It was time for me to do my part. I sat or stood next to Diana for pretty much the rest of the labor process.

I would go get ice chips for her, and give her one when she needed it. I hooked her Ipod up to a portable mini-speaker system we had so she could listen to her favorite songs. Mostly, I just held her hand, encouraged her when she needed it, and shut up when she didn’t.

The contractions kept getting worse and closer together. She wasn’t getting enough time to rest between the contractions, so they gave her some medication for just that purpose. Stadol was wonderful. I would be half asleep, start having a contraction, wake up, scream my head off, and then drift back off.

Around eight p.m., my parents came to visit. Shortly after that, Diana’s dad and step mom arrived. They all ended up staying through to the delivery.

The stronger and more painful the contractions were, the closer I knew I was to seeing Harrison. The more it hurt, the less likely I was to cave in and get an epidural. Don’t get me wrong, it was terrible, but I knew it was pain with a purpose. The last few hours of labor flew by because of how intense it all became. Before I knew it, it was 11 p.m. and I was ready to push.

It took a minute to get a good idea of how to push and what everything felt like. After I had my body scoped out, there was no stopping me. The doctor said whenever I felt the urge to go ahead and push with the contractions. She also said to push harder the more it hurt. When I felt a contraction coming, I just took a deep breath, grabbed the handles on the bed and pushed as hard as I could. Before I knew it, the nurse said I could feel the baby’s head. The doctor then turned to Charlie and said; “It will be any minute now. Pretty soon, I will tell you to put down Diana’s leg. Then I want you to reach down, grab Harrison, and put him on Diana’s stomach.” Charlie shrugged. “O.K.” This from the guy who wasn’t sure if he wanted to cut the umbilical cord. Soon after that, the doctor told me to stop pushing for a minute. I knew from my preparation that this was to suction his airway and turn his shoulders. I thought at the time it took a little longer than it should, but I didn’t know why until later.

The doctor looked at Charlie and said “O.K. Put her leg down and reach down here. Diana, PUSH!” One more push and Harrison was out. Charlie placed him on my stomach and my little boy that I had been dreaming about was here. I didn’t cry when he was born, I just smiled the biggest smile ever.

They whisked him away to clean him off. I looked up at the clock and said “Did I seriously just push out a baby in 22 minutes?” The doctor laughed and said yep. I watched them examine Harrison as the doctor put me back together. I remember seeing Charlie cut the umbilical cord across the room, which I thought was strange. The nurse then came to me and said “I know you wanted to nurse him in the delivery room, but we’re going to have to take him to the nursery because he’s not breathing as well as we would like.” Then, they let me hold him for a minute before they took him off to get better. Although I was worried at seeing how pale he was, I knew he was in good hands.

Later, I found out the reason for the breathing problems and why it took the doctor so long when I wasn’t supposed to push and why Charlie cut the umbilical cord after he was born was because it was wrapped around his neck. The doctor had to cut if off before he could be born. We are very blessed, because if I had had to push longer, Harrison might have been in some serious danger.

Now of course, he’s fine. I thank the Lord everyday for my beautiful boy. I’m so glad my birth experience was what I wanted it to be. Charlie was wonderful throughout the whole thing. It’s a lot of pain and a lot of work, but it’s sooo worth it.

A Boy

2007-06-28T10:44:00.000-06:00

I have no picture yet. I left my camera at the hospital. Larissas mom and sister took over for my mom and dad today at the hospital. Mom and dad headed home. I got 40 minutes of sleep last night. When i get little sleep, I get VERY emotional about everything, so add having a beautiful healthy baby boy by a beautiful healthy wife, you can imagine I am a basketcase right now.

I agreed I needed to come home and take a few hour's nap, but not without blogging first. Though, I could not leave without bawling because I didnt want to leave him and I sit here crying as I type just thinking about it. Everyone who says it is right; it is unlike any love I have ever known. One would think I would be happy to get away from a being that cant talk, smile, needs diaper changing, and shreiks worse than a Ring Wraith causing me to get no sleep. But the offer of quiet sleep filled me with saddness. And my wife, she gets no such luxury, so I feel guilty now... but all insisted, so here I am.

All you guys were right. And I never understood it. Brew, I suspect you are like I was... not understanding this love. I shan't even being to describe it. I thought I would not want to see him come out. I didnt sit next to the doctor, but from the spot at my wifes head, I could see is head emerge, quickly followed by his full body. His first cry had my hugging my wife as we both cried.

I no longer care about what others think of me, I no longer care of material posessions, I no longer care about myself. It is a crazy feeling.

My parents and her parents are amazing. Even if Larissa and I though we could pay them back for all the money they have spent on us in the past few months, it wouldnt touch their true worth to us. And our friends, likewise. I dont know how people do it without good family and friends.

Blast From the Past Tuesday... Babies

2007-06-26T09:36:00.000-06:00

Here is a blast from the past titled "Babies" from Rachel on November 11, 2005... Thought it was a fitting blog to post today considering my situation...

Here's a little quote I had as a mantra for a while: "When you wake up one day and say, you know, I don't think I'll ever need sleep or sex again... Congratulations! You're ready to have children." (Ray Romano)

But really, I can't count the number of times I wanted to just drop the birth control pills and get pregnant. I'm so glad I didn't because now I've got Luke and we're in a situation where I can stay at home with him and not worry too much about money or anything else. I finished school.

Sometimes I wonder if it was worth it, since nobody really asks you if you've got an art degree when applying for the job of stay-at-home mom. But then Josh reminds me what an accomplishment it was, how proud I can be, and that in the future I may want to get a job where it'll come in handy. And he's right.

First, let me say that I've never been happier in my whole life. But let me also say that I didn't get a full night's sleep for well over a year. Luke woke up every single hour many many nights. I (and Josh) was lucky to get 3 solid hours of sleep. I was a zombie. A happy zombie, but a zombie nonetheless. I could not have gone to school during this time even if it had been the second grade. School is different from work in two very important ways: one, you don't get paid, but you pay out to go to school; and two, the bulk of your work is done at home after-hours when you're in school.

Baby and Frog

2007-06-25T20:05:00.000-06:00

First, my wife will be induced this week. Put it this way, I don;t think we will be at church for Wednesday night Bible study... keep us all in your prayers. I will have my laptop and I will have internet access... so try to keep me company. If you have gmail, log on to see if I am online...

Second... went out in my backyard tonight, the bugs and such are very loud at night this time of year in my neighborhood and I like to listen to them... almost stepped on this little guy. If my motion lights hadn't have come on, he would have been goo on my bare foot... he seems to have tried to bury himself in the ground... wicked frog eyes...

3 things I have learned from being an almost-father..

2007-06-23T09:03:00.000-06:00

Being that my dear wife is having our child soon, I thought I would post some things I have learned about having a baby. Not about giving birth to a child, but 3 things I have learned from all the gifts we have received from the baby showers that our beautiful family and friends have thrown for us... Please know that nothing listed is a complaint, but amusing observations. Let me know if you too have found these to be true;

Everything requires batteries. And I am not talking about items you would classify as electronics. I am talking about virtually everything that doesn't fall under the category of "stuffed animal", though, many of them do. We got a pack and play and it came with this light that vibrates and plays music. We ended up trashing it. A bouncy-seat... batteries. Oh, and don't think that these battery compartments open as easily as the battery compartment on your TV remote. You actually need a screwdriver to open this thing to get batteries in. Oh, and batteries are NOT included... see ya when you get back from Radio Shack... for the 5th time this week...

Few, if any noise-making toys have on/off switches. If a toy or item plays "Old MacDonald Had A Farm"*, you can rest easy at night knowing that there will not be an on/off switch... much less a volume knob. What is ironic is that while so many items need batteries, the most annoying ones that play loud music require none! This has to be a joke. Not only can you not turn them down, not only can you not turn them off, but by golly, you can't even take the batteries out to shut it up!
*"Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", "Camp town Races", and "Rock-a-bye Baby" can also be added to this list.

Toy manufacturers do not want your child playing with the toys they make. Stay with me here. No matter how soft, how safe, or how non-dangerous a toy may be, toy manufacturers will always attach them to the toy packaging tighter than a medieval heretic by Catholic clerics. You literally need scissors to get a teething ring of its cardboard backing. It is as if they just wanted to sell the item, not expecting it to ever be used.

By the way, the Computer Lady offered up some labor advice to me the other day. She was telling me the story of how Ms Elizabeth (Elizabeth Wright Smith for all those who went to Faulkner. A beautiful older lady who beat cancer naturally and has to be 90 but looks and acts 70) induced her first child...

"Ms. Elizabeth told me she wanted to have her baby a month early on her father's birthday so she got up that morning, drank an entire bottle of caster oil, scrubbed the kitchen floor on her hands and knees, took her gun and her dog to go hunting and promptly went into labor that night. So if you just buy Larissa some caster oil and possibly a hound dog, you could have a baby this weekend. "

P.R.

2007-06-22T06:41:00.000-06:00

So I know this isn't a good post, and I would have emailed it to you guys, but I figured this blog is read by more than those I will email and alot of prayer is needed...

My brother lives in a house that has a chimney that is occupied by racoons. A cute story of these racoons is that a baby racoon fell and was in his fireplace. He is a gentle man so he kept the baby in a cage, hoping he could nurse it back to health. His neighbor had run the 'mama' racoon off into the woods. Days went by and this baby ate nothing and only stayed huddled in a corner. He was told by friends to let the baby go or it will die, but he was afraid an owl or some beast would take it and eat it.

So that eve, he releases the baby and the mama racoon appears out from behind a tree and the two run off together. She was waiting for her baby the whole time...

Well, the racoons came back. At some point when they left to find food, my brother decided to get on the roof and cover the chimey top... so as to avoid another falling of the 'coon.

Well, he fell off and broke many ribs and punctured his lung and is in ICU.

So please, say a prayer for him and the doctors and nurse staff.

Thanks, love you all.

Wierdest Day Of My Life

2007-06-20T07:08:00.000-06:00

Of course when I want to bring a little life into the blog by posting some old posts, Chuck would post a new one and mine would push his down... NOT INTEDED MY FRIEND!

I had this idea to do some old posts that were really good. We have alot of new readers and figured that they'd like to share in the good stories we have all read in the past. I am now posting one of my favorite blogs from Di....

I've never had to call Mall security until yesterday. A manager in our other BBW store was "let go" on Friday.

I'm not really sure of the details of why, but let's just say she didn't take it well. She threw her keys at the co manager and proceeded to say things about the store manager that I wouldn’t wish on anybody. She also said a lot of words I've only heard used on Sex and the City. Of course, guess who gets to go clean up the mess.

Before Charlie and I left for our Wilmington trip on Friday, I got a call from my store manager asking if I'd help out. I said yes, because I was already scheduled to go down there and help in a few weeks when the store manager has her baby. I left early yesterday so I had a chance to go by my mall and get the keys to the other store and ask my boss questions about the store. She left me with a warning " ***** has not been taking her termination well. She has been very verbally abusive, she's come by the store a few times, and she has said some pretty terrifying things. If she comes in the store to cause trouble, ask her to leave. If she doesn't leave, call Mall Security and have her removed from the store.

I was scheduled to work at 1-10 shift. When I got there, the co manager gave me the run down and I got acquainted with the layout of the store. Then she left to go on break. About 20 minutes later, ****** walks in the store. I didn't want to ask her to leave right away, so I watched her for a minute. She was talking to the associate about the store manager, walking behind the counter, being loud. I wanted to call my boss to make sure it was ok to ask her to go, but she kept walking in the back room! Then she said she'd be back later, and she left. I went to the back to call my boss to see what to do if she comes back. I was told to ask her to leave when she returned. As my co manager is asking me questions, my associate walks in the back door. "She's back and is demanding to know who you're talking to." I hang up the phone and walk out to talk to her. "*****, I'm so sorry, but I've been instructed that if I see you in the store, I'm going to have to ask you to leave.""By who?", "By the people above me. I'm sorry, those are just my orders." "Well, you can just tell them that [the store manager] is a F&%!ING LIAR and that I know what she did! (And here she gets in my face) I also know that they did this so you can get my job, so you just better watch you F&*#ing back!" and she walks out and sits on a bench right in front of the store.

First of all, the whole thing had nothing to do with me. Second of all, I can tell when somebody is saying things because they're mad, and when somebody is serious and wants to mess you up. She scared the crap out of me. I stood there a second and went to the back to call my boss. I explained the situation (shaking like a leaf!) and she said she would call the DM. He calls a minute later and says that I need to call Mall Security and have her removed. Mind you this is not my store, so I don't even know where the number is. I found it, called and they responded. About 4 of them. The mall I was working at is like a ghost town, so I'm sure they all sit around waiting for calls like this. I explained the situation and they said they can't take her out of the mall, but they can make sure she doesn't come back in the store. So they stood outside the door in front of her for about an hour. In the middle of all this, the co manager comes back from break and sees security guards everywhere. I explain the whole thing and the next hour she gets calls from ***** and her husband, yelling at her. Our DM calls and instructs the co manager to tell her she's not welcome in any of the BBW stores in the area.

So, I'm not going to lie, I was pretty jittery yesterday. It took a few hours to get my heart rate back to normal. I was afraid to go on break, let alone leave in a dark parking lot! We had a security guard walk us out. But then in my car I kept looking in my rear view mirror to make sure no one was about to shoot me.I don't have to work in their store until Saturday, so hopefully the whole thing will have blown over.The end. :)

Can I Get a Receipt?

2007-06-20T06:52:00.000-06:00

It's bad enough that gas prices are way too high, but it seems like gas stations everywhere are trying to save money (or make money). Am I crazy?

Lately when I go to the pump, I get frustrated because I never know if I'm going to have to either dig for a pen and piece of paper or walk inside to request a receipt from the cashier. And, it doesn't matter where I stop for gas. It seems that more often gas stations aren't refilling receipt paper at the pumps. I don't know if they are trying to get me to walk in and make an "impulse purchase" or what. But it's driving me nuts! I just want to pull up to the pump, swipe my card, press "YES" for receipt, finish pumping, yank receipt from pump, and drive away. Is that too much to ask? I know this much, I refuse to purchase anything if I do walk in for a receipt.

Jamison did not write this.

My new "before the baby comes" toy

2007-06-14T13:36:00.001-06:00

I bought a nintendo wii. Thought it would be funny for everyone to see me playing the wii boxing game. Loads of fun.

Getting yo "Jesus freak" on

2007-06-11T18:34:00.000-06:00

Thought it was funny... Anytime the word "Holy" is used in the same line as "Hip Hop" ya gotta crack a grin.

This is a banner for the church next door to ours. It no doubt makes visitors of our church cock their heads in wonderment as to the style of worship we have at Dalraida.... thinking the sign is for us.

Blogging Finally Pays Off

2007-06-08T14:08:00.001-06:00

About a year ago, I wrote a silly little post telling the story of my first pair of Dr. Marten shoes. Many of you know this story, as many of you have worn those very shoes.

About a week ago, I got an odd little comment on that story from a guy who listen a Dr. Marten URL in the comments and claimed to be a representative of the company. He was complimentary of my posting and asked me for my shoe size and address, for he wanted to send me a new pair.

I was a little bit worried that it might be some sort of scam, but the e-mail listed was @drmarten.com or some official looking thing, and it seemed a very odd scam, so I dropped him a line. We chatted a few times and he promised to send me some shoes.

Yesterday, I received those shoes from UPS! Lovely brown things that fit perfectly and are as comfortable as I remember.

I guess my years of blogging are finally starting to pay off. For my next story I think I’m going to write about the wonders of a new car, and living in million dollar houses. Who knows what I’ll get in the mail!

Diana's In Labor!

2007-06-05T11:31:00.000-06:00

All elements of surprise aside, Baby Stubbs is on his way into the world! Last night, Diana called me to discuss the fact that her doctor recommended inducing labor today because of his increasing size. Now, Diana is vehemently opposed to using an epidural- she wants a natural birth, and more power to her for that. So inducing was a scary proposition, because pitocin causes contractions to come on hard and fast; trust me, I know! By the time I got my epidural with Luke, I was shaking uncontrollably and throwing up from the pain. So Diana was going to talk it out with her doctor this morning at her regular appointment, and if she and Charlie so decided, would go ahead and get on the pitocin drip, or "pit" as the nurses affectionately and appropriately call it.

Well, when the doctor examined her this morning, Diana was discovered to be in labor already! So no pitocin, just a good old natural labor. When she called, they were "killing a half hour" as instructed by the doctor, and getting their labor bags out and ready. Last I spoke to her, Diana said she was feeling cramps, but no full-on contractions.

Krewe of Lafitte

2007-06-02T08:07:00.000-06:00

Booty with prized "Five Flags" fiesta beads in foreground

Last night the family went to the Krewe of Lafitte parade. I was going to have some great photos of the parade, but we could not find our new camera and then my mobile phone somehow was set to the lowest resolution possible. So forgive the quality of the small photo below.

We had a great time. My 93 year old grandmother was there and was abundantly beaded by the end of the night. People were walking up to her and Alexandra with gifts and beads. There was even one vehicle that was throwing out mini Blue Bell ice cream sandwiches.

For general photos go to the Pensacola News Journal Web site.

May 24th, 1997

2007-06-01T14:26:00.000-06:00

My life is complete,
And my heart is full.

Memories along with future memories
Make me love you all the more.

With you, I could attain any goal I desire,
And with you I will.

"Without you" is a thought far from my mind.
And each day, God grants my wish to be with you.

Had I never met you, I would have never known
how much I need you as I do today.

Stay with me,
Wholly one,
Forever in love,
And I promise to do the same.

A couple of you may recognize this. 10 years ago on the date above Jodi and I said "I Do and I will." (The "and I will" was my spontaneous reaction to her Grandfather's "I Do" question. After hearing my response, Jodi added "and I will" to her "I Do.") During that ceremony I had my friend and Groomsman, Jeff, read that poem aloud. I penned it for Jodi's 19th birthday card. We had nothing at that point, literally. I could barely afford the card.

It's amazing where God takes you in life, but as I typed those words a moment ago. I recalled the emotion of the original ink. I wish I could write such beautiful words today, but alas my feelings don't flow onto paper as well as they once did.

I just wanted to share with everyone a special memory.

Exodus 20:3

2007-06-01T07:46:00.000-06:00

I had my alarm set to radio today and I woke up to a news story that a top scientist at NASA had come to a conclusion that global warming just isn't something we should really worry about. He said this in an NPR interview.

In what would seem like seconds in the media world, PR officials at NASA scrambled to save face. A NASA official said of his statement: "It was a shocking statement because of the level of ignorance it indicated with regard to the current situation. He seemed unaware that 170 nations agreed that climate change is a serious problem with enormous repercussions, and that many people will suffer if it is not addressed." ... Wow, nations agreed that it was a problem... If just agreeing on something makes it fact, maybe we can get 100 people to agree that I am a rich Kentucky Colonel surrounded by beautiful southern women in tight corsets.

This made me think back on how so many Hollywood elite, or mainstream leftist politicians act when real live SCIENTISTS downplay the global warming issue; They react with, in many cases quite literally, weeping and gnashing of teeth. Why? If they are so against global warming and want the "problem" to be gone, why not say "HOORAY!!!" when a scientist says it ain't a problem? If people were dying all over the earth and the cause of death was a rise in the earths temperature by 1 degree, then I would say it is a problem, but so far, other than some smog in busy cities (which is being decreased) I don't see the problem... and apparently, neither do alot of scientist WAY smarter than me, and certainly smarter than alor of actors in Hollywood. I mean, forget the fact that during the so called "Ice Age" scientists agree that the glaciers melted on their own... without one jet flown by the Clintons and without one Hummer being driven by Sly Stallone.

This post isn't really focused on my opinion, but rather my common sense views, but even more so on the fact that we have a new religion in this world. Environmentalism. Don't get me wrong. I don't litter, I drive cars with pretty good gas mileage, and I hate oil spills. But think of it this way. In your mind, describe your reaction when you, a God-fearing person who believes in their heart of hearts that God created this earth in 7 days about 6,000 to 10,000 years ago. Now, someone tells you "Creation didn't happen." or "The earth is millions of years old." Let us say these men who tell you these things are scientists... WAY smarter than you. Do you believe them? Of course not. What if a handful or real scientists (Not affiliated with a church) say that they have found record of a worldwide flood thousands of years ago? Or say they have found that the earth actually is no more than 10,000 years old. You probably would hoop and scream for joy and hold those scientist upon your shoulders. Why? Because what they say goes along with what you believe religiously.

So go back to the environmentalism church. They react the same way when a scientist says something that goes against their belief. In truth, they kind of WANT the world to be at risk. Once the world is safe, they no longer have any work to worship. They want to be little gods who are responsible for mankind and the earth.

Going back to an earlier example. Let us say that you love steak. You don't worship steak, you just like to eat it. Now you are eating a steak and watching TV when a panel of scientists come on and say "Do not eat steaks bought a week or less ago, there is a strain of bacteria in all cows used to make steaks recently." Well, you may put your fork down and stop eating. You may even finish that steak, wipe your mouth off, and cross "Steak" off your shopping list for next week until the scare goes away. However, if perhaps you were a "Steakist" and believed that all steaks were good for you, and you found a few scientists that felt that the bacteria wasn't dangerous to humans, you' would keep eating steak and worship it by anointing it with A1 steak sauce.

I don't really want to stir up a political or social discussion, I just couldn't help but notice that a large sect of certain political leaders and alot of Hollywood folks (who say you should save the world by only wiping with "one square of toilet paper per day" -Sheryl Crow) may not worship God and may not give a flip about who Jesus is, but ya gotta hand it to them, they do love religion. Which kind of solidifies the idea about human nature; That humans feel some need to worship or have a greater power than them in control.

My opinion; I really don't think us little humans can destroy a earth that God created. Does this mean I am going to test God by trying to trow a bunch of batteries in the trash or dumping my radiator fluid down the storm drain? Never. I just think the destruction of the earth is on God's watch, not in our hands.

Castor Oil

2007-05-30T15:38:00.000-06:00

Here I am. The nursery is finished, the house is clean, the bags are packed, the birth plan written. Every thing is ready. I desperately miss sleeping normally, painting my toe nails, and, oh yeah, not being huge. So it’s easy to figure out why in a moment of desperation Monday night I tried one of the oldest old wives tails in the book. I drank some castor oil.

Castor oil, for those who don’t know, is a laxative. It is thought to “induce” labor by causing your intestines to spasm, which in turn, causes the uterus to contract. After researching it online, I learned that one of two things would happen. Either I would need to go to the bathroom A LOT or I would need to go to the bathroom A LOT and I would have a baby. Again, I’m a desperate woman.

I took the stuff about 9 pm. I mixed a two oz. bottle with half a can of coke (something someone online recommended.) It wasn’t too bad. I mean I’m not going to go to a restaurant and order it, but it wasn’t horrible. The worst part was my last swallow because some of the oil had already settled at the bottom and I got a swig of just castor oil. Ugh.

So we sat around, watched some special on the History Channel about Star Wars, and about 11 pm I got sleepy. I went to bed, only to wake up an hour later needing to…well you know. Then about 2 am, they started. I’ve already had contractions here and there, so I knew what they were. They weren’t bad but I started having a lot.

I walked into the living room where Charlie was reading and watching T.V. “Honey,” I said, “I’m having a lot of contractions, and they’re no big deal, but I think we should start timing them.” Well that got him excited. He got out his watch and a little notebook and started writing them down. My doctor has advised me to go to the hospital when contractions are about 5 minutes apart and about 45 seconds long. Other doctors may suggest something else. After about 30 minutes, mine were averaging about 3 minutes apart and about 45 seconds long. However, even though I was uncomfortable, I didn’t really feel in labor. So we called the hospital. The nurse said to stay home until contractions began to intensify. Then, we needed to go to the hospital.

I decided I just wanted to relax and watch The Little Mermaid. Charlie started to get ready. He got dressed, he made sure his bag was packed, he practiced cutting the umbilical cord on a hot dog. I just sat there watching Ariel, nothing changing, nothing getting more intense, and no baby coming.

Needless to say, nothing every happened. At about 8 am, my contractions fizzled out and I realized that Harrison was not coming after all.

The moral of the story: If you’re pregnant and you want your baby to come, don’t drink castor oil unless you want to poo a lot and want a big let down.

Figured out why I loved womens curling

2007-05-29T12:51:00.000-06:00

I loved watching womens curling during the winter olympics. it was about the only event I SCHEDULED time to watch....

I guess I never knew why, until I saw this video... Ignore the photos... just listen... Awwww yeah....

No Fighting Boys!

2007-05-21T19:04:00.000-06:00

I remember Mullins saying to me once how he wanted to arrange a mariage between Isaac and Alexandra. Unfortunately, Luke had first dibs. I have pics to prove it. Well, it turns out Noah and Caleb might be fighting over our second daughter. We just learned today I was going to forge new ground for the Midnight Cafe by having 2 girls in the family.

I was going to post some pics, but I found out my scanner needed some drivers after an XP crash a few weeks ago. I'll try to do that a soon as I finish the driver download.

The Brewster's Are Going To China

2007-05-21T13:33:00.000-06:00

We got the offer to go to China today. We will accept tomorrow. We have to be there early August.

Holy Crap!

We have talked about this for so long now it is unbelievable that it is actually happening now. It feels a little like we’re being whisked along without much control. When I sent our resumes I just wanted to see what would happen, or how we would react if we got a response. Then we got a response and now and offer, and I can’t think of what else we would do, so we go.

I’m really excited, and incredibly nervous.

There is so much to do, too. We have to get work Visas. Amy has to have her dissertation proposal approved. I plan to sell most of our furniture and haven’t the slightest idea how much to ask for anything, or how to even go about it. My dad says he can store anything else. We have a car to sell, insurance to obtain, packing to do….and more things I can even imagine at the moment.

China. Unbelievable.

The art (and workmanship) of Kellie-J

2007-05-18T08:32:00.000-06:00

Kellie J... if you know her, you love her. if you don't know her, you've no doubt heard tales of her and you feel like you know her.

She is, as some of you know, in a tough situation now. It is unfair and shouldn't be happening to as nice a person as her. But never the less, she is in it.

THis situation prevents her from being near a computer, much less an internet connection. Whats worse is that she can only go home to see her husband for a few days at a time. Sounds like jail, but it isn't. Though she may describe it as something close to that.

This post is not to describe her situation. It is hers and I leave it up to her to decide who knows about it and who doesn't (In any case, please pray for her, she is a good soul and a sweet girl).

Due to the situation she is in she has forced herself to stay busy (for her sanity). And this week she decided to start BUILDING (Yes, I said BUILDING) a toy box for her nephew. Well, she succeeded in less than a week. And of course it had to be painted. If you know KellieJ you know she is a good artist with a very original style. The paintings had no reference points. They are shaped simply out of her idea of the nursery rhymes. She sent them to my email via her cell phone and I asked her if I could share them with the cafe... enjoy (and click for larger images)

Church For Sale

2007-05-18T07:44:00.000-06:00

I’ve been meaning to post this for awhile, and Charles’ last post has reminded me to do it.

The congregation Amy and I attend is apparently located on some prime real estate. It is near a large shopping district, is a block away from a major state highway (which is also the route to Indianapolis) and sits on the corner of two busy city roads.

A few weeks ago the church was contacted by CVS. It turns out they are highly interested in this piece of property and want to buy. They are offering a very substantial amount of money. Part of the deal is that CVS agrees to buy the church another piece of land in the same area of town and build a brand new building, to our specifications, on top of it.

It’s really a very sweet deal, and from what I can tell, everyone is all for it. This is interesting to me, since many of our members would fall into the camp that the church shouldn’t have bake sales and yard sale, or in anyway take “outsiders” money for the church. And yet CVS (a company who will surely sell such unsavory items as booze and cigarettes and all kinds of unsavory magazines) flashes some big bills in front of our eyes, and suddenly everything is ok.

Why Can't Church Do That?

2007-05-17T19:40:00.000-06:00

I've had this one in the back of my mind for a while, but it resurfaced today. Our congregation is having a Yard Sale at the building to support the youth group's summer mission trip. Someone asked me about it, and I can not for the life of me figure out what would be wrong with such an event.

I had spoken to the preacher at my last congregation about it after he mentioned it being wrong in a sermon to have a "church sponsored" yard sale. I asked him, "So if we can't have a church wide 'sanctioned' yard sale, can 5 or 10 familys get together to have a yard sale at someone's home and give that money to the church or a special mission trip fund?" He said, "sure." I said, "so what is the difference with the elders saying, 'we support this; bring your stuff; the teens will do the work and keep the proceeds for the mission trip.'?" The basic answer I got was, "It's just different." Sorry, that's not an answer that's a cop-out. I just can't see a difference, nor can I see a Biblical reason why a "Church santioned" yard sale is wrong?

The only example that I can think that could be remotely related in the Bible is the money changers and animal sales in the temple. And the problem there seems to me that people were lining their own pockets. I do not mean to step on toes (and I don't think it really applies), but this would more closely related to selling Mary Kay or Boy Scout Popcorn at Church.

The Brew Wedding

2007-05-17T09:34:00.000-06:00

In case you didn't get to go to the Brew wedding, or in case you just want to relive the fun times of it, here is the video! Enjoy!

I am posting this with semi-Brewster-approval

A Closet Abba Fan

2007-05-16T15:29:00.000-06:00

If you had asked me anytime before this week if I was an Abba fan, I would have said “No, not really, I don’t listen to them.” And that would be an accurate statement. I didn’t own any Abba CDs ever, didn’t really know which songs were Abba songs. My mental connection to Abba would have been: “Dancing Queen?” Or “Yeah, there’s that musical Mama Mia, sounds interesting, but I haven’t seen it.” Or more personally, “Kathyrn, a grad student in linguistics, she’s an Abba fan. Gee, I miss Kathyrn, wonder how she is.” And that’s about it.

So what changed? Watching Passport to Europe with Samantha Brown, the ubiquitous Travel Channel hostess, I witnessed her experience an evening cruise with an Abba tribute band. It sure looked like fun.

So a few weeks later, I saw Abba: The Definitive Collection at our public library and picked it up. It fell into my pile of disks and sat in the car uncertainly, not knowing if it was going to be played. Other more familiar genres of music made their way to CD player first, filling my hour-long 3 times a week commute with comforting sounds. Then, on my way home from one of my last commutes (semester-ending no renewal of contract teaching gig), I thought “what the heck!” and then, I was enchanted. Not so much by the first two songs, but by the ones I recognized.

The teacher in me perked up and thought how great this would be for an ESL class. The music lover in me started to dance. And there you have it--my transformation from an uninformed listener to the beginnings of an appreciative listener. And all I can think is “Wow Kathyrn, you’re so right. I always knew you were wiser than me.”