My Clarity of Night contest entry

Hullo everyone, I've been busy.  I don't apologize for not blogging, but I do apologize for not reading and commenting on your blogs as I normally do.  It's been just too busy with work, work travel, family vacations, and all that.

Jason Evans has a new contest going over at his Clarity of Night blog.  The title is "Uncovered," and the photo prompt was inspired by the most excellent Stephen Parrish's most excellent debut novel, The Tavernier Stones.

Below are both the photo prompts and my entry into the contest.  I did not set out to write a poem; it's just what came out when I wrote my first attempt, realized it was crap, and then got the hell out of the way of my muse.  Also, I realize now that the dark gem is an emerald, not a sapphire, but what the hell.  It's only a prompt, right?  I don't have to stick exactly to every detail, right?

 

SMOLDERING

As slow as winter, fear seeped into our speech.

Its icy tendrils crept among our minds and
Insinuated themselves around our hearts.
Its fragments latched onto words and tumbled
Through our cabled veins on the blood
Of twenty-four seven news.

Politicians and pundits coiled and bit,
Rattling their tails and sabers.
Their forked tongues spit venomous words:
FascHISSt.  SocialHISSt.

TerrorHISSt.

We wrapped ourselves in unfurled flags
Against fear’s relentless freeze.
In the false heat of patriotism,
We danced around crackling pages
Consumed
Focused on the flames
Ignorant
Of ashes that rose and collapsed
To smother us under
a silent, colorless blanket.

Buried deep, our collective soul
Smoldered and survived
Until the blue, white, and red embers
Of our better selves rekindled
Melted away our fear
To shine and sparkle once more.

Hear the Author number... um... seven!

Hard to believe we've already done six of these "read something and post it to your blog" thingies.  Originally demanded by Robin, this time we are inspired by our wonderful friend, Paca (that's DOCTOR Paca to you... well, to us all, I guess).

UPDATE:  Sylvia has put together a list of all of us playing this round.

My reading, in the podbean below.  I apologize for the crappy sound quality.  I blame the equipment available (a Rock Band USB microphone connected to my Mac mini) and an utter lack of understanding of how to work with sound on a computer.

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And the full text of the story is below in case you want to read along.  This story did not win any awards in the contest, but I still like it.

Alone

Up here in the branches, the wind slithers under my coat and tightens around my arms. My breath freezes in my beard. This new rope scratches, but it warms my neck.

Wind whistles through the barn nearby, and ice breaks with thunderclaps on the river. Smoke escapes from the farmhouse chimney, disappearing into a gunmetal sky. As if from nowhere, one big crow flaps onto a close branch and stares me down with coal eyes and a black icicle beak.

Through cracking lips, I croak, “You never seen a man hang himself before?” My teeth chatter. I grasp the trunk to keep from slipping. “You come to stop me?”

“No.” The quiet voice visits my mind directly. The crow cocks its head to the side, its beak shut. The voice is Sarah’s. “I’ve come to witness.”

I glance to the ground, skin prickling. Sarah might be there, my shovel still buried in her naked chest, her blood staining the gray snow. Jefferson might stand next to her, headless. I whisper, “Begone, adultress witch,” and I shiver in every bone, right to my soul.

Sarah’s voice coos, “You will be warm enough, husband, when you join your brother in Hell. I bear no fault. He took me by force.”

“Begone!” I swat at the crow. My foot slips. I pitch forward and swing down in a slow arc, feel the rope cut my throat and freeze my breath. A gauzy haze drowns my vision, and the crow ascends through barren branches.

Ducklings Reprise

Remember yesterday?  No, neither do I, usually.  But yesterday we had ducklings.

Today, the mom and the seven wee ones came back.  They came quacking into our front yard.  We're not sure if they came looking for the one injured duckling, or if they were simply terrified out of a neighbor's yard by the gardener's leaf blower.  I prefer to think the latter.  I prefer to think they don't care about the little one that is now on its own at the hospital, never to be reunited with its mama.

Anyway, two new pictures.  I like the second especially.

Mama and ducklings walking on our side path.

Mama and ducklings choosing the perfect
moment for to be photogenic.

Make way for ducklings! with photos!

My younger son called me on my way home from work today.  He's 11 and still has that munchkin voice, but he's losing his little-boy lisp.

"Dad.  When will you be home?  We can't get the ducklings out of the pool."

"Ducklings?"

"Yeah, a mom duck and eight ducklings.  They can't get out.  We saw on youtube someone made a ramp from a lawn chair.  We're waiting for you to get home."

Twenty minutes later, I arrived to find, indeed, eight ducklings and one mama duck swimming around in our pool.

First, we grabbed two lengths of old, useless baseboard and lay them into the pool as a narrow ramp.  I had visions of Ping boarding his boat from the Yangtze.

We herded the mama (with her lings in tow) toward the ramp, but the mama kept jumping out next to the ramp and quacking urgently to her brood.  They, of course, eschewed the ramp and tried for the more direct route--jumping out like mama did.  But it was no good.  Even the best of them could only manage a couple of inches out of the water, a good six inches below the lip of the concrete coping.

At the insistent pleas of my younger son, the one who had seen the youtube video, we removed the useless baseboard and slid one end of a lounge chair into the pool.  It made for a much wider ramp, but it's a plastic weave and the ducklings simply hopped through the holes instead of climbing out.  The mom seemed overwrought trying to quack her ducklings into jumping higher.

About this time, the neighbor boy arrived to help.  He noticed that one of the ducklings was no longer swimming with the rest.  He was just floating around, one leg hanging limp.  We don't now how it happened, but we think he maybe broke it getting into, and then out of, the skimmer (where the water gets sucked into the filter).  I used the baseboard (not so useless any more) to lift him up and out of the water and deposit him onto the patio.

Mama duck seemed far less agitated but still unable to extract the rest of her family from the pool.

Finally, I got sick of the failed ramps and went to get an old sheet of beadboard left over from a long-ago bathroom remodel.  I lay the beadboard in the pool upside down, and it made a fair beachhead.  (You can see the lounge chairs in the background.)

Within minutes, mama duck led her kidlets up and out.  The exit wasn't so kind to the little ones, with the top of the ramp three inches off the ground.  One by one they tumbled off the edge onto their heads, popped right back up, and waddled off through the gate behind mama.

Unfortunately, the injured baby could not walk and was left behind.  Maria scooped him up into a box and took him to the Lindsay Wildlife Museum, which has an extensive and top-notch wildlife rescue program.  They whisked the duckling into the back room (stat!) and asked for the whole story.  They will fix him up good.  I am imagining him on the gurney with a blood pressure monitor and an IV drip and a team of surgeons just like in Grey's Anatomy.  Here's the little guy on his way to the hospital, sitting on a dish towel.

When mama got her babies out, she hightailed it out of our yard and across the street.  The seven mobile kids seemed not one bit upset about leaving the wounded behind, and the little injured one seemed to take a philosophical approach to the whole affair.  We have no idea where the family skedaddled off to.  They went into another yard, under a fence.  They're probably stuck in another neighbor's pool as I write this.

Beer Labels!

I thought when I pitched a competition, I'd have a ball seeing all the entries.  But I guess the kickoff was weak so only two friends took a shot.  Still, the goal was achieved, and two strong entries finished in a tie, which means only one thing:  a shootout to determine the winner!  I'll line up the shots and then drink them, and I'll declare myself the winner and hoist the cup in the end.

Here are the two entries, both of which will grace the bottles of my new brew in time for the opening game broadcast of the World Cup.  First, only because I received it first, is Gene's entry.

It's based on the FIFA World Cup 2010 logo, cleverly updated for the topic at hand.  I've modified it further to include the only thing that's clearly missing:

Then there is Jen's entry.  You may recall that she originally suggested Dudley's Old Peculiar as the name of the batch, but that turned into Dudley's Old & Peculiar.  I'm not sure if I'm supposed to take that as an insult or not.  In any case, the label is definitely good enough to put on the bottles, and it probably describes both the beer and the brewer.

So there you have it.  Inbounds Ale and Old & Peculiar.

ahoy, matey, weigh anchor and cast off!

The boys and I are going on a cruise this weekend.  An overnight cruise on a ship that will not leave the dock.  This will be my sixth time spending the night on this ship.  It's Ethan's fifth time and Sam's third.  I think.  I've lost track.

It's time for our annual scout overnight on the USS Hornet aircraft carrier, Ethan's second favorite place on the entire Earth.  (His first favorite is Disneyland.)  Here's a photo from one of our early overnights on the Hornet, when Ethan was just a Bear cub.  This must have been our second trip.  Didn't we both look young back then?

Ethan was so enamored of the Hornet that when the pine car derby came around, we decided we had to make an aircraft carrier car.  This is the absolute pinnacle of my craftsmanship with woodworking.  Ethan did most of the painting himself.

Years later, when Sam became a Tiger cub, we all went together.  Here's a photo of the boys on the flight deck with one of Sam's best friends.  That was four years ago; now all three of them are in the same Boy Scout troop.  (The kid hanging off the missile is not with us.)

Although we sleep in bunks in the berthing areas with lots of other people snoring and whatever, and although the food is cafeteria quality, and although it gets cold and drafty at night, I actually am really looking forward to this trip.  The Hornet puts on a great overnight event, and it's fabulous to see such a piece of history come alive through the stories the docents tell and through the eyes of the kids.

Hopefully I won't forget my camera.  Come back next week to see photos from this year.

BEER LABEL UPDATE

On Sunday I'll be bottling the beer I brewed two weeks ago.  I still have only two label submissions.  As it stands now, I'll be using both and sharing them on the blog next week.  If I get any more at dudleypj@gmail.com, I'll include them in the batch.

WRITING UPDATE

I am happy to say that on my recent business trip I managed to write for several hours on airplanes and came up with about 4,200 new words on the new new novel.  The new old novel is under submission, and the old new novel was semi-abandoned a couple months ago in favor of this new new novel.

Beer! Brewing! Need a name and label!

In keeping with my new years resolutions for 2010, I brewed a new batch of beer yesterday.  It's an Irish Red Ale, which they say is a lot like a Scotch ale but not quite so Scottish.

I had to start by buying a new stopper and air lock because I broke the old one with the last batch.  Turns out if that rubber stoppers get hard and dry as they get old, and if you push too hard, they actually slip down into the carboy.  We managed to work it out, but we broke the airlock during bottling.  So anyway, with the new equipment in place and a fresh ingredient kit from Beer, Beer, & More Beer, we brewed.

The beer looks great.  It now ferments and settles for two weeks, then I'll bottle it.  Two weeks later, just days before the opening game of the World Cup, it will be ready to drink.

The only problem is, I need a name and a label for it.  Normally I'd do this myself, but I'm turning to you, all my friends, to do it for me.  This is probably as close to a blog contest as I'll ever come, so you better jump on this opportunity before it expires.

The task:  Name the beer and create a label that can be printed on Avery 5264 labels, which are a great size for both the 22 ounce and the 12 ounce bottles.  These are 3-1/3" by 4" with rounded corners, and you need to be aware that I am not very good at printing bleeds unless you also provide me a six-up version that can be printed on my Mac Mini.

The context:  This beer will be consumed mostly in a hot tub with the World Cup on the big screen.  Some will be given away to friends, probably.  Children may be present, so no X rated labels.  (Actually, feel free to send X-rated labels.  I just won't pick them as winners.)

Submissions:  Email the name and artwork to me at dudleypj@gmail.com, no later than May 23, 2010.

The prize:  I dunno.  Maybe, like, I'll say thank you.  And you'll get the thrill of having your work displayed on beer bottles in my home.

Let us pray, or, like, whatever.

Dudes, it is the National Day of Prayer here in the good old U S of A, despite what some fuddy-duddy judge dude says.  Our founding fathers had the good sense to set up a system of government that separates church from state, and which leaves enough wiggle room for the state to cozy up to the church when it wants.  Cozying up is good.  I like cozying up, given the right cozy-up partner (that cozy photo there's me and Carrie Underwood).  And wiggle room is good, especially with that same cozy-up partner.  And really you can cozy up almost anywhere, especially if... sorry, lost my train of thought there.  What day is it?

Oh, right.  National Day of Prayer, which causes much angst and gnashing of teeth.  Did you know there's a group called Freedom from Religion Foundation?  I like the concept because, really, isn't freedom what this country's all about?  The pilgrims left Europe because the church didn't like the way they worshipped the old white-haired dude in the sky with the big beard and the magic finger.  Which is weird because all of them worshipped that same dude, from the same book.

But the Freedom from Religion Foundation has a really funky acronym.  FfRF.  Sounds like something a dog says when its got a tennis ball in its mouth, or the sound that comes out when you get latte foam up your nose by accident.  I think it's because of this funky sounding acronym that they are so wound up and tense over religion.  They think people are making fun of them, saying "FfRF" and giggling, so they feel like they have to prove themselves or something by being as militantly devoted to their cause as Franklin Graham is to his.

Here's what I think:  We don't need a National Day of Prayer.  Congress, back in the ancient days of the 50s or whenever, solved a problem that didn't exist and didn't need solving.  People who pray have like fifty-two days of prayer already.  Some people pray every day.  They really need another one where the government tells everyone who doesn't pray that we should all be praying?  On a Thursday in May?  This is necessary?

No, it's not necessary.  It doesn't help the spirituality of those who are already spiritual.  It doesn't create spirituality in those who aren't.  It's not like National Day of Prayer raises awareness of God.  National Day of Eating Fewer Trans-Fats, now that I could get behind.  It's practical, and there's a public health aspect to it.  But there's only one purpose a National Day of Prayer can serve, and that purpose involves solidifying the political power of the religious over the non-religious.

But instead of joining in that battle, I think I'll quote from two very wise men.

“Life is short and complicated and nobody knows what to do about it. So don’t do anything about it. Just take it easy, man. Stop worrying so much whether you’ll make it into the finals. Kick back with some friends and some oat soda and whether you roll strikes or gutters, do your best to be true to yourself and others – that is to say, abide.”
--The Dude

“Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.”
--Abraham Lincoln

And, with one final thought from Mr. Lincoln, I say, "Happy National Day of Prayer."  Take it easy.

looking for happiness in the bottom of a D cup

Here in California, we have a lot of fake boobs.  We also have a lot of things that create fake happiness.  Napa offers wine, Marin offers marijuana, and Genentech offers Valium.  These mind altering substances offer a brief illusion of happiness but do not actually make people happy.  Fake boobs may or may not make certain people happy, for real.

A week or so ago a woman in Orange County went so far as to fake some credit in order to pay for her new fake boobs.  She was looking forward to hitting the bars to show off her new chest, but it looks like she'll be spending time (six months) behind bars instead.

Back in 2005, ABC aired a story about a new trend:  parents giving their children boob jobs for high school graduation.  Presumably, the gift was limited to daughters.  But again, this is California, so anything's possible.  The best line from this story:

The gift of breast implants costs about $7,000. "But I don't think you can put really a price on your child's happiness," [Jennifer's mom] said.

That's right.  No price is too high for our child's happiness because, you know, money can buy happiness.  If the Jaguar doesn't do it for you, maybe a nice rack will.  If that doesn't work, maybe Xanax is for you.

Here in our very own elementary school, my younger son acted and sang in the school play.  He was a cardsman in Alice in Wonderland, and although it wasn't a starring role, he had several lines and loved every minute of it.  By all accounts, the play was a smashing production, and I agree.  Really well done, with some terrific performances.  Around the last week of rehearsals, though, I heard an ugly rumor that some of the little girls (these are 10 and 11 year olds) had begun taking anti anxiety medication because of the pressure of this play.  This wasn't about boobs, of course.

But this was:  A retailer in the UK was recently forced to pull a product from its shelves.  The product?  Bikinis for girls younger than 10 years old.  Bikinis with padded bras, for girls younger than 10 years old.  The article notes an anonymous source with a possibly reasonable explanation for this, but really.  Come on.  Really?

Padded bras for little girls?  Women stealing money to get boob jobs?  Children taking anti anxiety medication to make it through the school play?  Parents buying their daughters new boobs to create self esteem?

What the cuss has happened to us?

At least this lady knows how to teach her son proper values.  If he's gonna steal the Xanax she hid in her bra, she's gonna turn him in to the cops.  Talk about looking for happiness in the bottom of a D cup.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Poor Louisiana.

too much salt? not enough salsa!

Brazil has leapfrogged California.  No, not economically.  According to Wikipedia, California's Gross State Product (GSP) is $1.8 trillion compared to Brazil's $1.5 trillion Gross Domestic Product.  (Personally, I think California's grossest state product is asparagus, but that's not my point.)

My point is that Brazil now has the coolest government.  We already knew they had the best beachware, but now Brazil's health minister is urging the country to cut down their high blood pressure.  While we here in the US fret about things like salt intake, Brazil is pushing exercise, from dancing to sexual intercourse.  (I'm guessing that the reason the rate of high blood pressure rose in 2009 in Brazil is because of the minister's announcements.  If I knew the government and the health industry were behind me, I'd do everything I could to juice up my blood pressure right before my doctor appointment.  You know, to get the prescription.)

Back in 2003 we had a choice to make in California.  Our governor was kicked out, and we had 135 candidates on the slate in the special election.  Eventually we selected The Terminator, who has proved to be mostly inoffensive.  That's about the best I can say for him.  We thought it would be totally cool to have a kick-ass actor as governor again.  Harken back to the time when Dutch was governor.  A tough guy for tough times, a real Americ... um, tough guy that understands guns and manly modes of transportation such as horses and motorcycles.

Me, I hoped we'd go a different film star route.  I hoped we would follow Italy's lead.  In 1987, a full 16 years earlier, Italy saw the wisdom of electing a former porn star to Parliament.  Cicciolina, a Hungarian born porn star, in 2002 failed to win an election for mayor in an Italian city.  I am sure defeat was hard for her to swallow.  Maybe, had she won, we would have had ridden her tail--um, coattails--to a victory of our own.

Yes, we had our very own ex-porn star running for governor of California, the eighth largest economy in the world.  Mary Carey, a former ballet dancer and current porn star, ran on an 11-point platform that included making lap dances tax deductible.  Carey promises to run for President of the United States when she turns old enough (35).  According to Wikipedia, she will be eligible for that position the 2016 election.  And why shouldn't she?  She's already familiar with all the other positions politicians engage in.

If only we'd elected Carey, we'd still be ahead of Brazil.  Plus, when a porn star urges more sexual activity, it feels authentic.  When a regular old health minister does it, it seems... doctory.  Like the old guy with cold hands that tells you to turn your head and cough.  I'd much rather hear it from Carey.  Plus, I'm sure she's very familiar with politics since, being a California based porn star, she is likely familiar with the club at which the RNC hosted some, um, "meals."  Which means she's probably heard a lot of political chit-chat through the years while she was working.

California's loss may be Louisana's gain.  Porn star Stormy Daniels is preparing to run for Senate against disgraced Republican David Vitter.  I dearly hope she wins.  I'm considering moving to Louisiana just to vote in this election.  How a Senator can co-sponsor a constitutional amendment to protect marriage, then get caught with his pants down like he did... and still be electable is a big question.  And now that he's running against a porn star.  It just doesn't get any better than that.

God bless America!  (And Brazil a little bit, too.)

PS:  Be sure to keep your salt intake low.  And get your blood pressure checked regularly.

Wednesday invades Saturday

Today is Saturday.  And a GLORIOUS Saturday it has decided to be.  Which, unfortunately, means a lot of weed pulling.  But it also meant a youth soccer tournament between Walnut Creek Soccer Club (my son's local club) and youth teams from Sheffield Wednesday.  No ash clouds in sight (or any other clouds for that matter.)

Wednesday arrived Thursday to play Saturday.  They may also be playing Sunday, but they won't be playing my son's team.  My son is on the second flight team, and only the top flight are in the tournament.  I don't have any idea what the results were, but judging from the American parents' comments, it seems Wednesday schooled our boys pretty good.

But what was fun for my son was a coaching "clinic" the Sheffield coaches put on today.  Essentially it was four weeks of practice squeezed into sixty minutes.  They asked my son's team to be the practice squad, so a few of the boys and a few younger ones were run through a frantic but professional set of drills.  It was great to see the demeanor and action of the coaches, watch how they ran the drills.  I didn't take any notes at all because, thank God, I don't have to coach this year.  Hooray for me!  Yay!

The best part of the day was the language barrier.  The boys had no idea that "in ya come" means "stop the drill and come listen to me."  They had no idea that "have a breather" meant "stop the drill and take a rest."  One boy said that the main coach (who had a wee hint of Scottish brogue) was completely unintelligible, and not a single word was understood.

Here are some more of the photos.  Sorry they stink.  They were taken on my blackberry.  My son is #61, the one clearly exhausted after the first drill.  (Apple doesn't fall far from tree.)

Here, Sam is successfully dispossessing one of his good friends.  A natural defender, my boy.  Again, apples and trees, limited distance relationship.

Final wrap-up before quitting.  No breaks for an hour--the boys did a terrific job keeping after it and represented their club well.  Very coachable set of boys, those.

Boy Scout Jamboree

When I was seven years old, I tried cub scouts and pretty much failed out.  I never thought much of it over the years until my boys joined cub scouts... and loved it.  The more they loved it, the more involved I got.  The more involved I got, the more they loved it.  So, recently, I found myself completing the training to become an official Assistant Scoutmaster.  Which was almost like waking up one day and finding out you live in a Brady Bunch house with a white picket fence in middle class suburbia.

Here's my house (courtesy of google maps street view):

Anyway, my first Scout event as a newly minted Assistant Scoutmaster was the Northern California Jamboree to celebrate the 100th anniversary of scouting in the US.  They expected about 16,000 people to attend, including scouts, adult leaders, volunteers, and staff.  Instead, they got 20,000.  Although not all 20,000 camped overnight, there were lots of tents.

The middle of the three photos above was our troop's camp site.  The others are just random photos from our little corner of the fairgrounds.  Imagine this fifteen times over, and you're getting close.

Some of the newer boys let their moms pack for the two-night campout.  We expected to hike our gear in about a half mile from the parking lot, but fortunately for this new scout, we were able to drive right up to the tent site.

Sam was also a new scout, on his first outing since bridging up from cub scouts.  He'd been on many outings with the troop, but always as a sibling and never as a scout in his own right.  Here he is, in full regalia.

The Jamboree was actually quite well run.  Although there were 20,000 people on the fairgrounds on Saturday, I never had to wait in line for a bathroom longer than a minute.  Food, on the other hand, was a mixed bag.  They provided tickets for the concessions booths for lunch on Saturday.  We were lucky and waited only 30 minutes for a hamburger and chips.  People who went after us waited more than two hours to get food.  But dinner was done cafeteria style, and it went smoothly.  Here's the line for dinner; it took our group about ten minutes to get from this point to meals in hand.

Although many of the lines for the events seemed long (we abandoned the BMX biking line after 15 minutes because we were only 20% through it), Sam still managed to have a ton of fun.

He climbed.

He tied fishing lures.  (We don't fish.)

He arched.  Archeried.  Shot arrows.

Did a number of other fun things, too.  All in all, it was a good event.  But I could wait a hundred years til the next one.  I prefer camping out in the wilderness rather than among 20,000 other people.

tax code gone wild

The US Chamber of Commerce has a blog.  They call it the Chamber Pot.  Sorry, Chamber Post.  For some reason that s always drops off when I read it.  Today they linked me to the video below, which would make FOX News proud (if anyone over at FOX News could understand it).



OK, sorry, I showed a little bias there, didn't I?

Over at the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, where I think they consider Glenn Beck a little too far left for their satisfaction, they say this video "exposes hidden tax of IRS compliance."  In the end, I was very disappointed to find, the narrator does not actually expose anything.

Personally, I think a flat tax with a minimal set of rules makes a lot of sense.  The IRS as it exists today is even more ridiculous than the health care industry.  Throw out the tax code.  Establish a flat income tax.  Abolish exemptions (except the extremely poor) and tax-based subsidies.  The 1040 would be reduced to a quarter page (half a page including instructions).  What's not to like?

This video does highlight some staggering statistics which prove is that the current tax system and the IRS are huge, wasteful bureaucracies.  There's an unfortunate undertone of "it's all Obama's fault" which is no surprise if you look at the other articles and videos at the Center for Freedom and Prosperity.  And in the end, the exposé of the hidden tax is that, yes, companies hire people to comply with tax law, and those people are paid out of the companies' taxed revenues, and their salaries are then taxed, and golly gosh darn it when they invest their money that gets taxed too!

I'm not really sure what the point of this video is except to make everyone feel worse than they already do about April 15th, the IRS, and government waste.  And of course it's only going to get worse since Obama put the IRS in charge of... something.  What did she say at 2:06?  Oh yeah, Obama "put the IRS in charge of enforcing a government run health care system."

Wait a second.  WTF?  THE IRS RUNS THE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM?

Oh shit.  Now they really CAN take your spleen or whatever if you don't pay your taxes.  My god.  The cost of compliance will soar.  But it'll still be less than the cost of non-compliance.

But doesn't it all sound better when read by a cute college girl sporting a spaghetti strap top and a glowing tan?

Spring Break halfway mini travelogue

Out in California, where we don't have a "ski week" in February, we take our spring break at the logical and civilized time of Easter.  This is bad because the cousins in Connecticut are in school this week, but it's good because we have all the attractions and museums to ourselves.

We flew out on Saturday the 3rd, the day before Easter.  My older son had given up air travel for Lent, but when I reminded him that he's a devout Atheist and explained what Lent is, he relented.

Easter involves about 35 relatives all getting together at "the club" (a local former one-room schoolhouse that is more of a community center built in the 1950s than what most might think of when they hear "the club" up on "the hill").  I have a wonderful, fun family, and my extended family on my stepmom's side is as quirky and wonderful as my own.  Couple that with 75 degree sunshine all day, and you've got yourself a grand old Easter dinner.  Oh, and since my sister turned 50 on Wednesday, we had cake and sang and lit candles.  But only a few, symbolically, because after all it's an old schoolhouse and probably would have gone up like a bundle of straw.

We also colored Easter eggs in the morning. This is a tradition that I loved as a kid but now treat with unbridled apathy.  My boys, however, love it (for about 2.3 minutes, just enough to pretend that the white eggs have picked up a healthy pinkish glow from the dye).  What I love is that the main Easter egg company is named Dudley.  Why?  Who knows?  But it is an undisputed truth that everyone, simply everyone, needs a Bendable Dudley.

Monday we drove out to Bradley airport and the New England Air Museum.  This is a wicked cool museum, with a truly impressive collection of original, restored, and replica aircraft.  This includes the original oldest remaining aircraft in North America--a balloon basket from a hot air balloon from the late 1800s.  Military and civilian aircraft, with a tremendous amount of history and factual information.  Highly recommended.  Oh, and don't miss the B-29 in the Bomber Wing.

Tuesday we split up.  The boys went with the grandparents to laser tag and some other nefarious deeds that we parents didn't really want to know about.  Meanwhile, Maria and I went south to the my father's birthtown and the current town-of-residence of one of my very bestest childhood friends.  We and Larry lunched at a little restaurant right on the shore, complete with lobster bisque and a crab salad sandwich.  Some things just aren't available in California.  Then we took a walk out to the beach.  Another gorgeous day.

Wednesday we went to the Pequot museum at the Foxwoods casino in southeastern Connecticut.  I'd heard it was really spectacular as Native American museums went, so I had high expectations.  And I happily say that it far exceeded my high expectations.  I really recommend this museum.  The fact that it is near a casino should have tipped me off that there would be bare breastage, however.  (No, not the docents--the statues in the Pequot Village).  The toplessness of these figures was neither tasteless nor gratuitous, however.  And frankly, by the end of the Pequot Village exhibit, I was a little surprised to emerge back into the museum and see women wearing shirts.  I do love the fact that it's up front and center, so to speak, on their web site.  As the curator says, "Get a load of those... beads!  In her necklace!  Yes, those are some beads."

Wednesday we nearly forgot to call my sister and wish her happy birthday, but we didn't.  Forget, that is.  We called after dinner and sang into the speakerphone.  To her answering machine.  A typical Dudley birthday celebration.  Happy 50th, sis!

Thursday (today), we split again.  Maria and my stepmom were going to see some NPR speaker in New Haven tonight, so my dad and the boys and I hightailed it over to a truly manly museum:  Battleship Cove in Fall River, Massachusetts.  You may remember that last year at this time, we visited the HMS Belfast in London.  But that was merely a single ship, and that only a Cruiser class.  Battleship Cove has not only a legitimate, full size, wholly kick-ass battleship (the USS Massachusetts), but also a Destroyer, a submarine, some funky Russian missile boat, two PT Boats, and a landing craft like the one used in the D-Day invasion.  This museum rocked.  I thought the guns and magazine on the Belfast were impressive.  Holy smokes, the guns on a real battleship are daunting.  I did not get a photo of it, but the projectile hurled more than 12 miles by those turret guns are exactly the same height as my 10 year old son.  And they weigh far, far more.

You can see the boys sitting on that block in the foreground, under the guns.  The superstructure is behind them, with the I-195 bridge in the background.  This is another highly recommended museum if you have any interest at all in WW II history, military history, big ships, or whatever.  Plus, the woman working the snack bar on board was one of the friendliest servers I've ever met.

That's it so far.  We've also watched a few DVDs--UP, Hoodwinked, and Amelia. The boys are watching Live And Let Die as I write this.  We have two more full days, then earlyearly Sunday morning we take off.  Maria and the boys return home, and I go on to Minneapolis for three days of business meetings.

Spring Break should be more than a week.  It should last all Spring.

Shocking look into government spending

As part of my Day Job, I subscribe to a number of email newsletters from places like the Public Affairs Council, the US Chamber of Commerce, Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship, etc.  Sometimes I read what they send me.  Usually I just glance at the charts.  A couple of weeks ago, this one caught my eye, from the Business Civic Leadership Center (BCLC), an arm of the US Chamber:

With the health care debate raging and the war in Iraq raging and old people raging, I found this chart fascinating.  We spend nearly a quarter of our budget on Defense and one-fifth each on Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid.  Combined, about two trillion dollars, nearly two thirds of our total federal budget.  In comparison, TARP seems miniscule, a mere rounding error.

Then I noticed that pale blue area, the "Other Discretionary."  Most people might think the person who made the chart spelled it wrong and should have spelled it "Slush Fund."  A concerned citizen, I decided to a little investigative journalism of my own worthy of the most popular of cable news networks.  What I turned up was the shocking allocation of that $437 billion, which I've detailed in the chart below.

With this shocking breaking news information in hand, I polled a random sample of the American people, including the crazy toothless homeless guy on Market Street, three drunk Norwegians trying to flip over a cable car, and two telemarketers who called me during dinner time.  I think the findings from the survey, detailed in the chart below, show what Real Americans think of Obama.  And it's not pretty.

It's time to take back our country, Americans.  I mean, we all adore Ellen because even though gays should never be allowed to marry, lesbian bondage strip clubs are cool and Ellen is funny usually, so that's OK.  Simon is still Simon, but Randy has to go.  I don't care how many records he's making with Gladys Knight.

4,387 and counting

Honor and remember them.  Because we all need to be reminded from time to time.