Holiday Break?

Holiday, I have looked that word up in three places to make sure it is spelled correctly. It is spelled correctly, it just does not look right. This phenomenon of a correctly spelled words not looking right might be one of the sources of my many frustrations with spelling and writing. When a correctly spelled word does not appear to be spelled correctly in my mind and the converse, a incorrectly spelled word looks correctly spelled. It was literally until college that I correctly spelled the word "any." It still does not look right. If you have read some of my older blogs you will know my problem with "know" and "now."

Maybe the word "holiday" does not look right this time because the present holiday break does not feeling like one. Except for sleeping until 9 am today the "time off" has packed with fun and excitement. The ten day off are pretty full. The run up to the holiday and the holiday itself was very pleasant. This is the first year in a long time I have had looked forward to the season (sans the mixing of reason, for the season.)

The last two day have been focused on the sick kid. He has had a fever and felt all around awful. Today his fever was down and he went to preschool, which was good because the carpet cleaners were coming today and herding two dogs was going to be plenty to keep me busy. At 1:30 the school called and said that his fever was up again and he needed to come home. I wish there was more I could do for him beside giving him medicine to lower the fever and put him to bed.

Wife calls about 4 pm to tell me that she has tested positive for strep and that she was having someone call in scrip for her and Son. Well now I understand why I have had a sore throat and have been cold and clammy for the last two days. We are now all on antibiotics.

If Son is well enough to go to school tomorrow I am going up to church to help an Elder do some wiring for some new speakers. As if, the church needs a speaker system. The sanctuary is little bigger that a large living room, if fact it is smaller that the great room of Elder I am meeting tomorrow. But, some of the older folk refuse to move up front to hear better and some of the younger families want to have speaker in the basement for when the babies cry.

The rest of the time off is pretty free, so far, but you can never tell. We do have a dinner Friday for some old friends of Wife and I am looking forward to meeting them.

Part of me can't wait to get back to work to get some rest.

The Wheeze from Above

Last night a little while after I went to bed, as I laid awake feeling bloated from all the fat and carbs I had eaten that day. Repeatedly asking myself when do I do this to myself. The this being, over eating to the point where sleep is uncomfortable and accumulating enough gas to let loose burbs that could pass for a fog horn.

As I laid there feeling like a Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade balloon, I heard over the baby monitor Son wheezing. Which in my book is not a good thing. Son had been coughing for the last couple days. So much so, with so much repatriation, that we were able to teach him to cover his mouth when he coughs, which he now does about 80% of the time. The other 20% is usually right in my face.

Hearing the wheezing my mind went to ronchi and rales. Son had a fever yesterday, along with the cough. My mind raced to pneumonia. In my carb and fat addled mind all I could thing to do was wake up Dr. Wife (who had been asleep since 8pm, it is know around midnight.)

I ask, "Is that wheezing coming from Son?"

She responds, "Yes it is he'll be fine."

I respond, "If I remember right wheezing is not good."

She then tells me that we have some albuterol left over from last time and if I want to I could give him a treatment, but that to do so I would have to go to Sister's to get the nebulizer. Even in my carb addled state I clearly did not want to wake up Sister and Brother-in-Law, who had been up Christmas Eve night and Christmas morning putting together presents with many small pieces for niece and nephew.

I was not present the first and last time, when son needed breathing treatment, so I then asked if we had nebulizing cup and tubing. If we did, I thought I rig one of the CPAP's up to the bubbler and give Son a treatment. You see we have a O2 set up for Wife's CPAP from when she was in the hospital. I thought I could reverse the direction of the flow.

You might ask why I though I could rig this set up. The answer is that while I was a paramedic (in my youth) I spent one of those five years as a respiratory therapist. This was in the old'en days when equipment was not as specialized as today and there was times at 3 am when we had to figure out ways to get equipment to work in different ways than designed to deliver the an ordered therapy.

All that said, we did not have a bubbler or for that matter one of those face moisturizing machines (it would have worked.) When I am bloated on carbs my mind does not stop and it functions in odd ways.

After I realized there was no way to deliver the albuterol, I brought Son down to sleep with us. That action just insures that none of us would get any sleep. After half an hour I took Son back to his bed.

This morning I took Son to Wife's clinic to have one of her colleagues check him over and tells us what we already knew. Of course, he didn't have temp this morning - but he was still wheezing.

He order a machine for us to use. Son and I got home a little while ago and I gave him a treatment. He did not like the process but he did get a good dose of meds. It is amazing how deep a child breaths when crying. He is now sleeping, the first good sleep in two days.

Now if I could find a treatment that keep me away from carbs and fats, I could sleep as well.

Praying to the "Bab'a Jesus"

One of my favorite scenes in Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby is the scene at the dinner table where Ricky Bobby is saying grace to the "Bab'a Jesus." He spends most of the time, before he gets to his request list, talking about the characteristics of a baby. His fingers and toes, his hair, his cuteness. I laughed out loud at the absurdness of the prayer but also I have been at tables where I have wanted to laugh at similar things prayed, I am sure others have felt the same way about my praying.

Later as I reflected on that scene it occurred to me there was another reason for my laughter. It had to do with the human need to try to control God. From the Tower of Babel to our insistence that we control the limits of God's salvation and who God "Saves."

You see, it is easy to control a baby, particularly new borns. We can pick them up and take them where we want them to go. We can show them off and have people say how cute they are. We can put them to bed and go about life without a whole lot of inconvenience. We can determine if they live or die, if we decide to feed them or not.

The only thing they can really do to us is annoy us with crying and bodily emissions. Even those things, if we are cold hearted enough, can be ignored.

Jesus on the cross is hard for us to pick up and carry. The wounded Christ is not so cute. We can put Jesus in the tomb but we can not keep him there, he will get up and find us in our locked rooms.

The baby Jesus may appear easily controlled, but not the risen Christ.

Taking the King's Shilling

This morning on the way to work I was, as usual, listening to NPR. One of the stories was about the need to increase the size of the Army and Marines. The question was asked if the Army was having a hard time making it's recruiting goals now- how will they do if they have to recruit another 50,000 a 100,000 soldiers. The answer was to offer better signing bonuses to new recruits of the military.

After hearing that I could not help thinking about the English Army of the 18th and part of the 19th century. The Army in this time period of English history, was a "volunteer" Army. Recruiting Sergeants would go from village to village, or from block to block in the cities, with a drummer (hence the phrase "drumming up business")looking to fill the regiments. Each regiment was responsible for its own recruiting. They often used taverns to recruit, getting the intoxicated patrons to take the "King's shilling." Often putting the shilling in the ale glass so that when they had finished the mug the shilling would fall into the mouth and by this action accepting the shilling. By accepting the shilling, no matter how it came into a persons possession, they were by law agreeing to join the regiment (notice the root of the word soldier is sold.)

The men, who of their own free will, volunteered for the English Army often did so out of a last resort. They were either running from the law or in such dire financial circumstances that it was either join the Army or die.

Today the United States' volunteer Military is not as draconian as the English Army but there is similar motivation of financial needs of some of the men and women joining the military. This economic draft is part of who we are today and it is a great benefit for people who need that leg up in life.

What bothers me is that if these people had other options would they take them over the military? A military career is honorable and fulfilling choice for a life's work. As a matter of fact I would have signed a military contract in college, I wanted to, but I was two pounds over the weight limit to qualify on the last day to sign and was disqualified. In the mid 70's the a military career was not a popular choice but that is what I felt was my life's calling. Looking back I wonder how my life would have been different.

I know that most of our service people today have chosen the military out of patriotism and calling.

My heart goes out to those soldiers, sailors, marines and air force personnel who are in harms way because they felt they had no choice but to except the "Kings shilling"

First Preformance

Last night Wife, ML (mother-in law) and I attended Son's first display of creative expression in public. We, as his "posse," have seen him perform many times.

• There is "strong baby": where flex's his muscles and gets what appears to be a grimace on his face. When he did this the first few times we thought he was having a seizure.


• There is "singing baby": with a play list of Happy Birthday, ABC.., Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and a medley of all three with Old McDonald thrown in to boot.


• There is "athletic baby": where he high jumps over the side of his crib, plays dodge ball with the dogs and runs from mom and dad.

But last night he was in the public sphere for the first time with 25 to 30 other classmates. The children did a wonderful job of cooperating with the teachers, just enough, to demonstrate that there was a plan to the gathering of snow flakes and reindeers.

The real performance was in the audience.

There was the competition among the fathers, to see who had the biggest camera. I carried a pocket size digital camera and did not qualify as a real father. The winner of the contest was the father who lugged in a camera - with tripod - the size you see on the shoulders of people chasing car wrecks to sell footage to media outlets. He marched in just before the children and proceeded to climb on one of the tables to set up his equipment. I half expected him to ask the lead teacher to wait until he was ready and call action.

The main competition was to see who could arrive the latest and still get the best seat in the house. Placing themselves in front of all of us who arrived early and on time! There were several times when the music leader had to push the crowds back.

In the end it was about the children. Their smiles and laughs. The look on their faces as they saw their parents in the crowed, a few cried but most beamed.

When Santa came in to gave each child a present, Son went up to get his gift with his pants almost falling off but he kept his cool and said thank you.

Before Santa could get away I made sure that I got my request for my Christmas gift, to have bigger camera than "table top" dad.

Non-News

--- Breaking News ---

When news readers report on their own actions, particularly good works, it is not news!

One of our local affiliates, who reminds us at least 3 times a half-hour that they are "The most watched local news" has been spending the last three weeks, that's right three weeks touting the raffling off of One X-box with proceeds going to the stations much sponsored and reported on charity.

This has been one of the top three "stories" that the station has covered on each of their half-hours segments - morning, noon, evening, and night - for the last three weeks and every time it comes on my blood pressure rises. I would watch another channel but this is the station that does the least of these kind of stunts and is the lease tabloids of the stations. Because the only thing that bothers me more that making themselves news is new broadcast that make mountains out of hang nails and reporting breakthroughs in medicine that the same station reported as breakthroughs two years previous (yes, some of us have memories even if they don't.)

If you take an 30 minute broadcast and take the, at least, 8 minutes of commercials out and take out the 8 minutes of self promoting by the station. These promotions include items about the local station, network programing, news style report of "reality " TV (from own network,) and the loyalty building school visiting by weather people, reporters and helicopter pilots. There are about 14 minuets of news in the half-hour and most of that is exploiting peoples fears and suffering. That is less news than there was on the 15 minute news casts in the 50's.

You might be asking PT Pastor, why do you watch? Well the answer is that I watch less and less. The more half-hours they put on the less I watch. There is one station that has 2 hours in the morning, 1 hour at noon, 1 1/2 in the late afternoon and 1 1/2 at night. Of 6 hours of airtime, beside traffic and weather a bout 3 minutes are news. Truth is that I watch because I want to know what is happening in my metro area and the TV is the way I got that news as a child and I want it back.

I would not mind, so much, if they called this programming an entertainment show with news updates but they call it all news. I wish is that the local public broadcasting channel would do an 1/2 hour news program each night (with the caveat that they could not do their fund raising during that time period but that is another blog altogether.)

Then maybe we could get, to paraphrase Jack Webb from "Dragnet" - Just the news Ma'am.

(You can click on the cartoon for larger image)

Finished

For those of you who have been anxiously waiting to hear how my Christmas lighting project has come out. I finished last night with the last extension cord in place!

The only problem now is - somehow I have ended up with about four extra strands of lights.

Look out back porch here I come. Have I become obsessed?

Broken Promises

When a couple of friends of mine were called to a new church two years ago. Part of their decision process was to ask if they could afford to make the move. To move would involve them taking less money and not a small sum. The church promised that they would pay them to at leased the same level of compensation they received at their previous church, if not more the next year. Well, in the first year the church grew and the increased giving could cover the needed increases several times, but there was no increase. This year they had to ask for the increase because of some very caring and giving actions taken in their lives back fired. They took in a church members teenage grandson who needed some stability in his life that ended up with the wrecking of both their cars plus legal fees.

One of the hardest things for a pastor to do is go to the governing body of the church and ask for more money. When I was in this position I had mixed feeling of what it means to serve God and the giving unto Cesar what is Caesar's but also receive a living wage. Church members also do not make it easy to talk about finances. I don't even want to get started on giving.

The relationship between a pastor and the church is a covenant. One of the realities of scripture is that God has made covenants with God's people from the beginning and the one constant is that God always keeps the covenants and the people always brake them. Bad things often happen when covenants are broken.

This church they are serving has broken it's promise to my friends. I am not saying they are God but they are two of the most giving people I have ever known. They have often made decisions that were not always best for their own security but have followed where they believe God is call. In this church they have kept their part of the covenant. Bad thing probability will not happen but the relationship has changed.

I guess the crux of my frustration is why to so many faithful people find it easier to break a covenant within the church context but not in all the other parts of their lives where they would not dream of breaking promises without thought or discomfort. Such as:

• Not pay their taxes


• Not pay their utilities


• Not pay their doctor

And they would not stand for not getting paid for the work they do. I know there are people who are forced to make decisions between eating and paying the doctor, between paying rent and living in the street. For the people in this church this is not the case.

What makes me angry is that most often the people who could be more generous and have the ware with all to be giving (financially) are the first to over look the needs in front of them. I think it is because if a person has suffered they know what it is to hurt, to be without. In my experience the people most likely to tithe are the ones who could use what they are giving for basic needs (i.e. the women and two coins).

My hunch is there are a lot of people in my friends present church, particularly the one who do not see why the pastors need more money, who have never wanted for anything.

@#%$&*, @#*&^ Lights!

If you have read my previous blog on Christmas decorations "The Dreaded Season of Yart,"you will know that I have mixed feeling when it comes to decorating for Christmas. Last year we put white lights on the bushes and a wreath on the door and called it good.

When we moved into our home the previous owner proudly told me that he was leaving the Christmas lights for us to use because they looked great on the house. Well they were icicles lights and after living in Texas for a number of years and seeing icicles in place never intended to have icicles I told myself I would never use icicles lights.

Never say never. I should have learned by now that if I am destined to do something I can count on it if I utter the magical phrase "I Never...." As a child I can remember telling my parents I never wanted to live in Texas. Guess what, I lived there for ten years. I remember when my 1979 Ford gave me nothing but trouble I said, I would never by another Ford. Guess what I am presently driving.

You can also guess what I have been doing over the last three days. Yes, you are correct I have been trying to hang icicle lights on our house. All the hangers were in place, in the garage, all the lights worked. The weather was as good as it was going to get. So, on Saturday I put them up. Guess what, after I got the lights up - fighting uneven ground, bushes, trees and gutters that did not want to cooperate - portions of four of the six strings of lights that worked in the garage did not work when hung on the house. I did not spew unseemly words, this was just the first attempt.

I decided to get four new strands of icicle lights and try again next day. The next day I took down the offending strings of lights and started to replace them with new lights. Well, the new lights were 8 inches shorter than the old, internally I went @#%$&*- @#*&^! .

So, I realized that I was going to have to take all the lights down and get a few more strings. Okay I can do that. Yesterday I got the rest of the lights. We now have a whole new set of icicle lights (hit self upside head). The weather is warmer. It appears that God is in heaven and all is right with the world. I get the lights up with few difficulties and lots of electrical tape. I plug them in and guess what, right dab in the middle of the middle string on the longest and most difficult run of lights, there are 5 lines of icicles that are dark. This time I mutter to self softly @#%$& - @#*& - *****.

Tonight I will replace that middle string of lights.

I don't think I will be mutter softly this time if they don't work.

Happy Birthday

Every time Son sees a lighted candle he starts singing "Happy Birthday to You." At brother in-law's birthday dinner he sang happy birthday all through dinner until Sister could take it no longer and asked Niece to blow out single candle in the middle of the table. After this was done Son sat with a contented smile. With an expressing saying - at last - thank you.

This a happened last night at office dinner but he has started to add Amen. He went from table to table where there were candles singing and amening.

Tonight he has taken the one step further. We were having a father son moment watching National Lampoons Animal House. There is the seine where there Boone, Katie, Pinto and the professor are opening their minds and there are two candles in the center. Son sees this, points and says, Happy Birthday? Happy Birthday? There is no way I can blow those candles out so it was night, night time.

Tomorrow we are celebrating Sister birthday so he will have a good reason to sing.

This week he are staring to sing "Jingle Bells" it okay know but come the 4Th of July.

If this happens Amen (So be it)

Gloom, Despair and Agony on Me ....

Deep dark depression, excessive misery.

The best show in the history of TV, in my opinion, is coming to the end of it's fourth season. I watched the season finally of The Wire last night on HBO "On demand".

For the first time in my TV watching history I had that hollow yearning for more I sometime get when finishing a good book. At the end of the other three seasons I had feeling of regret but this it was a deep felt NO!! So many of the characters have changed the basic way they understand life that I want to see more, now.

The other reason for my lament is that in my reading about the series in the print media, is that it appears that next year's season might be the last for the series (most likely will be.) As the season finished last night it showed the characters as they were going about living life in the context of their changed reality. This change of reality has occurred over the series and the pace has been accelerated this year; some in pain, some in hope and some numbness. It feels like I have been living with a health vibrant friend watching and sharing their lives becoming, more complex and full than ever before and then being told that by this time next year they will be dead.

I know this is just a just a TV show and I should be more involved in my own community instead of being caught up in a fictionalized community set in Baltimore but I truly feel after watching this series I come to better understand the humanity of people struggling to understand their lives in relation to persons they would normally see as being on the "other side."

I guess at the bottom of this all is that the creators of the show have brought to life my understanding of the world around me.

• There is no black and white, just gray. That in every person there is good and bad.


• That most people make decisions with good intentions, contaminated by self interest.


• And that there is hope of change for the better but that every change for the good has the possibility of unexpected consequences.

As Son would say "Oh my"

Scientific Prophet

I hope he is not always correct in the visioning of the future. These are some of the topics written about in David Brin's 1991 Earth:

• The world wide web and the self forming web communities
• The use of portable video equipment that citizens ware to maintain law and order
• Portable telecommunications that could be used on while hiking in the wilderness
• He wrote of New Orleans and the rising dikes to hold off the rising oceans

I have to admit that I am a big fan. So much so that I buy hardcovers when a new novel is published. There are some things that he wrote about in this novel that have not come about but very well could:

• Building arks for wild life when their natural habitat is no longer viable and have to build self contained ecosystems for them because the ozone is so depleted they could not survive without the protection
• A war over the secrecy of the banking system

I have read this book several times. The first book of his that got me hooked was The Practice Effect. The basic premise of this book is that scientist have discovered a way to move back and forth between parallel universes. The other universe the main character enters is the same as our universe except for one thing. Instead of items waring out with use, the more you use an item the better it gets. For example, the more you wear shoes the better they get or to build a house you put up cheap walls and the more you life in it the better it gets.

This book got me hooked and I read everything he has written. I have been waiting for his next book of fiction for while. If you want to check out his web site it is http://www.davidbrin.com/.

Wake-Up Call

Some would say I am time obsessed. Tend to worry about being late. Late to meetings -to flights -even to wake up in the morning. I know this says something about who I am.

While taking a counseling class in graduate school, it was marriage and family therapy or group therapy don't really remember, one of the supervisors said something about how people use time and what it says about them.

If you are early you are anxious; if you are on time you are compulsive, if you are late you are controlling. For the most part I think his observation is correct. He also said things about white males and pinkie rings and women in red coats but that is for another time.

I admit it I am normally early and I confess I am anxious when it comes to time. When I stay at hotels I set the alarm clock in the hotel (that is if I can figure out how to set it with out calling maintenance) set my own alarm clock and I get a wake-up call from the front desk. Even then I do not sleep well afraid I will over sleep. Because I travel so much I have a lot of restless nights.

One of the reasons I am always early is that I don't want to keep people waiting on my account. I don't want to be rude. How I would love to be able to arrive when I feel like and expect people to wait for my entrance. I have tried to be late, from time to time, problem is that I would sit out in the car waiting to be late worried if I was going to be late enough.

I have to meet my colleague for dinner in 45 minutes. I guess I better leave so I can get to the lobby on time.

First Blogger Crisis

Well, I have weathered my first Blogger Crisis. Yesterday I went to change a misspelling on a post. The spelling and grammar error was pointed out to me by "language expert" Wife. Okay I didn't need a "k" on now.

Well I clicked on the edit post button on the offending post I got to my horror HTML text and no picture. What to do. I know (notice correct use of "k") what HTML looks like. I appreciate all the good things it brings to my life. I do not want to have to work with all those symbols. I learned FORTRAN, well at least flunked a course with dignity. I do not want to work with programming symbols. I still have dreams of punch cards. What I want to do is type my poorly spelled and grammatically incorrect English into documents, and I want to do it now (notice correct use of word without "k".)

Well, I tried to find a email to report my tragedy but I found none. When Wife came home she gave me sage advise "blogger messes up a lot try again tomorrow and it will all be better", she's a doctor you know (notice correct use of "k".) She was wrong. It was still there today and still staring at me. I search the different discussion groups and the answer came up "CRTL F5." It worked, a miracle!

Now (for the last time, notice correct use of word without "k") I am happily completing my first post crisis blog.

We are starting our holiday social activities tonight. Tonight's is with family and I am looking forward to the time together.

For the rest of the events this season, I would rather take a FORTRAN class.

Mixed Messages

When I woke up this morning. My knees said "Stay in bed" my back said "Get up now!"

You know it is going to be a challenging day when even your body gives you mixed messages.

Oh, by the way the back won. Its been with me longer.