Hebrew is today. The teacher hasn't even given a book assignment to the bookstores yet, which might be good or might not. I'm not sure yet.
I'd question whether I can even stay blogging, if I weren't already not blogging. :)
Now, to get out of this, one has to be insane, but no insane person knows they're insane....
Now we know why that movie stayed in theatres about 5 minutes after the premier. It is AWFUL! Rodriguez's son came up with the idea, but it's really just a cheap knockoff of "The Neverending Story".
Do not pass go, do not even spend 1 US Dollar to see this movie. Like Sherlock Holmes tried to forget that the Earth was round, I fully intend to try to forget this movie as quickly as possible.
We had lost 6 different fish last night, and two more after we did a water change and tank scrubbing. The rest are looking puny enough that they may well not make it long either. What is so troublesome is the suddenness of it. Yesterday morning, they're fine, now they're mostly dead. Very disturbing.
We started out with a normal bemoaning of gas prices. We love everything about our 4Runner EXCEPT its gas milage rating. In the town, it sometimes can't even make 10 miles per gallon. On bad months, we're pouring $80+ per month down its gas tank. The 4Runner's only saving grace is that, when we get it on the open highway and turn on the cruise control, it can top 20 mpg even going 65-75 on the Interstates.
There's also one other big negative on the 4Runner: we are almost $4000 underwater on the car loan on it.
We decided to see if there were any vehicles that were nice, very fuel-efficient, and big enough to seat all 4 of us (and preferably a guest every so often). The only one that fit the bill seemed to be the Jetta TDI diesel. It was efficient enough that we could pay for the underwater part of our previous car loan out of the fuel savings alone.
IF we could find a dealer who would fall below retail. Which we can't. Instead, the Lexington dealership won't even talk about falling below MSRP. Very depressing.
I finally started praying when I cought myself taking the curves to Cades Cove Sunday, and dreaming about how the Jetta would be taking the curves so much better, and how the Tiptronic shifting automatic would work so well...
The feeling is easing, but it still is hard. Now, if one of you fine readers happens to be a VW dealer and can get me $2000-$3000 under MSRP, that would be very nice... :)
If anyone DOES see a problem, please Email me ASAP.
I just want to know how my average readership went UP two hundred visits a day.... ;)
Friday night, we went out to eat, and Milady asked me what I wanted to do Saturday. She knew I was tired of fixing the house, and we all wanted a change. I thought for a minute and said "I want to go to Gatlinburg tomorrow." She thought about it for a minute, and then said, "OK, let's go." I love her so. :)
We were at Meijers a half-hour later, collecting groceries, and getting ready to go. By 10PM, Milady's neice (the social worker) had also asked to go, so we were collecting a five-some together.
We had a ball. I found Milady a "She Who Must Be Obeyed" T-shirt (read Rumpole if you have any questions). We did spend too much money on the kids' clothes, and a few for ourselves.
I even fed one of my clothing weaknesses. You see, I like fedoras and trenchcoats. I love to wear a brown fedora and matching trenchcoat. I have ever since my senior year of high school. I never picked up a desire to wear a suit or tie, but I always thought those film noir detectives were so COOL. I was in high school some years before Columbine, so no one thought it too strange.
I kept a fedora all through college, even while dating Milady, and she thought it was cool too. However, the only hat store in Lexington is fairly useless for simple things like helping one find the right hat size, so I gave up the habit.
Then I found wonderful hat Saturday in (of all places) a country-western clothing store in Gatlingburg proper. I just need to steam-reshape the brim a bit (still too cowboyish). It's also missing the traditional fedora ribbon, although the cowboyish leather ribbon isn't awful. I'll fix that sometime in the next couple of weeks.
Of course, I could never quite match this fellow in Hat Coolness, but one should have goals...
Sunday, we went to the farm to visit my grandparents and parents. My mom and dad asked Number 1 Son to stay a couple of nights and go on the farm with my dad. Number 1 Son hesitated some, so we let him decide when he got home. We got home, and number 1 son wants to go to the farm, but he doesn't like the idea of us being an hour's drive away. There's some level of seperation anxiety after his stay in the hospital. So, like the charitable person I am, I volunteered to take him to the farm Wednesday, and even to go out and work with him and Pa.
I swore, proclaimed, and declared that I'd starve in the gutter before I farmed again. I suppose this is one of the ways God is reminding me to be humble... Maybe the two of them will forget I volunteered to help by then. :)
I am notoriously forgetful. As my mother always said, I would forget my head if it weren't attached to my body. I've tried a couple of times to use a paper organizer, but I never could seem to use the thing. Then I got my first PDA phone, a Kyocera 6035 Smartphone. It was at least 2 generations back on the Palm scale, but it was good enough a PDA for me, and it was the best cell phone I've ever owned. Since my employer paid my phone bills, I didn't need a pager too, so I only had one device. I started calling it my extended memory because I could put stuff in there, and it was backed up in multiple places.
I went through 2 Kyocera 6035s, and when the second one died under warrantee, Sprint gave me a Samsung i300. It was the same generation as the Kyocera, and color too, but the Palm part is about the same. I wasn't ever very happy with the phone, and when I switched to the Current Employer and got out from under my contract, I dropped Sprint, and just used it as a PDA.
Then I started paying less attention to the PDA than I should have. When we got the new laptop at home, we took down the older workstation. I didn't back my PDA up to the laptop like I should. At work, I only backed it up to the older PC, not my desktop Mac, so I didn't integrate it into a calendar or Address Book like I should have. When the battery died and the hard drive went out on the old PC I was using, I couldn't bring back my memory. I ended up missing a meeting, as well as losing almost a month's worth of checking account data. (The latter was easy to recover: put $0 in the balance and start over ;) .)
Now, the PDA is charged again, and tied into the applications on the Mac. I can say I've recovered most of my memory.... :)
Also, our neighbor's family needs our prayers. They have let sin step into their lives, and haven't repented of it. Now, they're suffering some of the consequences. We think they are starting to realize this more, so please pray that the Lord helps them, and helps Milady and I as we work to show them all God's love.
Thanks everyone.
On central air units, the coils have to have a pump attached to drain the water away from the house, so the underparts of the house won't mold. Our pump's hose wasn't even sticking out of the hole in the foundation, which means water was heading straight into the foundation, and from the foundation leaking into the basement. The leaky bathroom was probably the root cause of the original flood, but this hasn't helped any. On top of that, if the hose leaks on the outside faucet, that water wanted to come down into the wall too.
I pulled the AC pump hose out and foamed the hole into the house, so that hose can never again move back into the house, nor can any water or bugs use that as a way in. We've also banned the garden hose until the plumber (read: me) can fix it too.
On a better note, the insurance lady did say that I could go ahead and fix the bathroom fixtures myself. Since I haven't gotten a single plumber to return my calls, that will save us some money, at least. We can get the contractor in to fix the bathroom, and I can finally get the floor downstairs fixed. Maybe we can have the construction zone closed by August.
I tought our Sunday School class last Sunday.
When Milady and I first went to our current church, the kids wouldn't stay in the preschool area long enough for us to have a Bible Fellowship class. Finally, they grew up enough to stay with the teachers, and off to class they went. We looked around for a class, and "Family Life" sounded nice. The age group was "30-50" if I remember correctly. Seemed like a perfect fit, a mix of younger couples and older ones.
Instead, the people in our class were all in their late 40s and early 50s, and only one couple had younger kids. Even so, it was obvious that the Lord had led us to the right place, because they were very supportive and loving with us. They've welcomed us into their fold, and when the leadership of our church basically ignored us during Number 1 Son's hospitalization, they were there with food & support.
Last week, our teacher said that he was going to be out of town this last Sunday, and someone would need to teach the next lesson. Suddenly, everyone in the room looks at me, and I knew what the deer feels when it looks in the headlights. Two of the church's elders are in with us, and our class' teacher is one of the most respected teachers in the class. Teaching them was such an intimidating idea.
The study guide we're using is really good, and can practically be read from in class. Which is good, because I was so busy last week, that's about all I did. I also managed to teach about 2/3 of the lesson, the part about following God's leadings. This was OK, except that I now need to spend all of next class teaching 1/3 of the lesson, the part about getting still and listening. I think I'm going to get the Nooma "Noise" episode from our college ministry leader and play it for our class in it. It's one of the most powerful videos I've ever seen about just getting still.
Pray for me please. :)
But that doesn't matter. When I was in high school, I found a cool cassette tape of Irish drinking songs. I did my best to wear that tape out, and then I lost it. After Milady and I got married, I was able to find a second copy of that tape, but I never could find a CD of it. Until today.
The memory is so weak that I can't remember if it's exactly the same CD, or if it's almost the same. The songs I like the most are the same, so I think it's the same one.
There's something relaxing about hearing an Irish guy sing, "If moonshine don't kill me, I'll live 'til I die." :)
The hardest part of my life right now is having to deal with the insurance adjuster. The contractor wants to tear the entire bathroom out, including the tub (to replace the subfloor underneath the tub), and he's already mentioning that the adjuster might not pay for it all. In the scheme of things, this isn't a lot.
Milady's niece is a social worker in the Kentucky Mountains, and she's dealing with parents hopped up on Oxycotin and meth. She says that so many parents up there involved in methanphedine production and consumption that she doesn't see how any kids in the area will be able to grow up normal. Living in a place that can blow up if someone breathes on the lab equipment the wrong way at the wrong time can't be all that healthy...
Our neighbors have a household falling apart. I can't talk about the details, but it's a mess. Please pray for all of them.
We still grieve with our friends in London. I pray that loved ones are found and brought back to their families.
Finally, there is Sudan, Zimbabue, and so many other places where man willfully violates the will of God by mistreating his fellow man.
It's enough to want to say "Come, Lord Jesus!" And it makes some problems with a bathroom floor seem rather trivial.
We were sitting down, watching the BBC News on public television, when Milady went to see why the kids' blanket on the floor was wet. As she stepped on one of the the boards, water started bubbling up out of the floor. I just about cried, and Milady started to too.
We were up until 2AM this morning, pulling out 40 now-ruined boards of Pergo laminate, and cutting holes in the ceiling to track down the leak. We checked, and it looked like either the toilet or the shower in the main bathroom were leaking. Since we had the floor off for almost 2 weeks before doing the floor downstairs, we know the water was a recent (less than 2 weeks) event. We mopped the floor, brought down the laminate we were going to use upstairs on the hallway, and started running the dehumidifier to try to dry out the whole place.
This morning, I rushed out at 8AM (which is Way Too Early on a Saturday) to get marine caulk so we could rush to recaulk the master bathroom's shower (which was down because some caulk had broken loose) so we could shut down the main bathroom. Then I started cutting out the walls of the shower, since I knew that they needed to go. Our neighbor came over and pointed out that our homeowner's insurance would cover it, so now we have our first insurance claim. This is good, since the subfloor in the bathroom is pretty much mush.
Particleboard is sawdust that has been glued together to form a hard board. It's really strong stuff, but it has a bad flaw: its glue is water-based. Get it wet, and the glue washes away. You'd think that even an idiot would know better than to use particleboard in a bathroom. Nope, that's the subfloor in my bathroom at least. Once I'd cut out enough of the shower walls, I could tell that the shower had been leaking behind the walls, and most of the subfloor, even under the tub, is now mush. We took pictures galore (to prove the damage to the walls), and then took the tile walls outside to throw them away. We're going to keep the wet (now dry & warped) boards until the adjuster can see them, since we didn't get water pictures.
Assuming that the subfloor under the tub is as bad as the subfloor all around the tub, I'm hoping that the insurance company will pay for pulling it all out (including the tub) and replace the entire subfloor. I'll even trade vinyl shower walls for a new tub. Of course, I don't want to get anything undeserved or unnecessary, so if they'll at least pay for the drywall, flooring, and the bathroom subfloor, I'll be happy.
At least, I will be happy if I can get my hands healed up. I managed to cut myself while trying to open the marine caulk. It's a nasty cut right in the middle of the tip of my right thumb. I can barely grab anything, and it looks nasty.
At least we will have to fix the main bathroom now...
May the Lord hold all of London in His hand, and extend His peace to all who are troubled.
In support for our good friends who stood with us on our day, we stand with you now.
Update Sept. 29, 2008: I lost the original Union Jack picture, so I'm borrowing Wikipedia's....
John Hinderaker of Power Line has decided to defend the Kelo v. City of New London case decided by the Supreme Court last week, briefly on Power Line, in more depth on the Weekly Standard website. John's logic is why I am do not like the title "conservative".
New London appearantly is condemning large sections of land around the new Pfizer facility, not because they are particularly "blighted" or requiring removal, but because their use doesn't match the desires of community planners. John defends this, using language steeped not in (IMHO) conservative values, but in the worst of the 19th century pro-business socialism that forced the creation of the progressive movement.
The second-strongest power that a government has is the confiscation of property, whether temporary or permanent. The English government trampled this in pre-Revolution America, through forced billing of soldiers, among other grievances. The Fifth Amendment was designed to constrain the powers of government from infringing on the rights of people.
John forgets that governments do not have rights. A city does not have the "right" to be more prosperious, or to make more money. Instead, people have rights, and one of those rights is right to security of their property.
Unlike John's Pollyanna statement "Second, the Fifth Amendment requires that anyone whose property is taken for a public use be fairly compensated, and in practice, most takings are compensated generously", reality shows a much harsher picture. Condemnation is a club welded early and often against poor people who cannot afford lawyers. For every one case where some politically-connected person gets triple value, there is a poor person robbed of their land. Moreover, even if someone is paid fair value, it is rarely enough to buy an equitable piece of property and to pay the expenses in moving from one piece of property to another.
I believe that a US government entity should have to meet four standards before a condemnation of direct living space or active business space occurs:
1: The property will not leave government ownership for at 15 years, or the original owner gets right of first refusal to purchase the property back at the amount paid at condemnation, no matter how much the property value has increased in the meantime.
2: The primary use of the property changes significantly (i.e. house -> road).
3: The government must, at the owner's choice, either pay fair market value or purchase a comparable property within a reasonable range of the property. i.e If you take a poor farmer's 30 acres, the government either pays cash, or goes and buys 30 acres of farm somewhere else close.
4: The government pays all lawyer's fees, and no caps.
Yes, this would make life harder on the govenment (especially number 4), but that's fine. I prefer the government's life to be harder.
A lot of bloggers have mentioned that they wished that Pixar had used the alternate, picnic start to The Incredibles, and I agree with them. However, the ending has a subtle point that I missed for a long time. Syndrome has lost Jack-Jack, and is threatening to keep coming back to threaten the Incredibles again and again. A weak director would have used this as a dramatic moment for Bob to decide whether he should sacrifice his sports car. Brad Bird goes for subtle. Syndrome is done monologuing, and Bob just throws the car. He may well never get another sports car, but Bob has realized just how important his family is to him.
The car goes in a second. Bird's so subtle that it's easy to miss, but the choice is there, and it's really no choice at all.
The contrast between The Incredibles and Robots is amazing. The Incredibles is a really good, rich, mature (but NOT adult) story that just happens to be animated. Robots is a collection of flatulance jokes wrapped by a bunch of generic plot devices. Not even Robin Williams AND Mel Brooks could hide that there wasn't much plot to Robots.
People will be hard-pressed to remember Robots in 5 years, while The Incredibles may well be on the Top 100 movies of the 21st Century show in one hundred years, and Brad Bird will, if he keeps up this string, will be one of the all-time-great directors of the 21st Century.
We didn't get in bed until midnight last night, but I wasn't especially tired when I went to bed. At 9:30 this morning, our neighbor dropped her grandson off to stay with us. This wouldn't have been so bad had we not all been asleep. Worse, I was supposed to start a work change at 9AM. Fortunately, I had 3 hours for the change, but it wasn't that big of one (AIX patches, install drivers, and reboot). I'm already done.
Now for home improvements...
It's yellow. Very yellow. It's flurescent yellow. It's fire-engine yellow (you know, that 80s yellow that was supposedly better to see than red). It's bright. The fairy border helps make the trim and the walls blend, and helps mute the yellow, but it's still bright.
Did I mention it was bright?
I have to take the three-day weekend and get the hallway, Little Miss' room, and the stairs done with flooring. I'm going to focus on getting the downstairs stairs done, so I can know what the stairs will require, and then do Little Miss' room if we will have enough to do the hall and the lower stairs too.
One of these days, we will have the house done with, I guess.
