The Banzai Chronicles

• 08:51 I favorited a YouTube video -- Charles Anderson discovers dragonflies that cross oceans youtu.be/WNDWYW4yWEM?a #
• 09:17 Creepy 3D ID card www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/samsung-oled-identity-card-animates-your-creepy-disembodied-hea/ #
• 16:45 I favorited a YouTube video -- FARMVILLE Commercial!! (Ad Parody) youtu.be/odBDAcOEKuI?a #

I was reminded this morning of this popular passage by retired Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, author of the seminal (if unfortunately though accurately titled) On Killing:


If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive citizen, a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath, a wolf. But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? What do you have then? A sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the hero's path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed

Let me expand on this old soldier's excellent model of the sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. We know that the sheep live in denial, that is what makes them sheep. They do not want to believe that there is evil in the world. They can accept the fact that fires can happen, which is why they want fire extinguishers, fire sprinklers, fire alarms and fire exits throughout their kids' schools.

But many of them are outraged at the idea of putting an armed police officer in their kid's school. Our children are thousands of times more likely to be killed or seriously injured by school violence than fire, but the sheep's only response to the possibility of violence is denial. The idea of someone coming to kill or harm their child is just too hard, and so they chose the path of denial.

The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference, though, is that the sheepdog must not, can not and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheep dog who intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished and removed. The world cannot work any other way, at least not in a representative democracy or a republic such as ours.

Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that there are wolves in the land. They would prefer that he didn't tell them where to go, or give them traffic tickets, or stand at the ready in our airports in camouflage fatigues holding an M-16. The sheep would much rather have the sheepdog cash in his fangs, spray paint himself white, and go, "Baa."

Until the wolf shows up. Then the entire flock tries desperately to hide behind one lonely sheepdog.


Still rings true, however much the majority of the population balks at the "sheep" tag.

I was going to post a picture of what 4:15 am at the airport looks like on me. But it was pretty terrifying and I was fairly certain I couldn't blame my cell phone camera. More on why I'm at the airport on my layover in Chicago. If I'm awake...

we are taking a seven-week childbirth class through the hospital where we plan to deliver champ. this is a surreptitious photo of our instructor, an incredibly fidgety and energetic woman who moved the entire time she was teaching. tonight we talked about the birth experience and it was illuminating to hear some of the couples' perspectives; they ran the gamut from no-medication naturalists to women who wanted an epidural immediately and men who did not want to see the birth.

taken with my cell phone for project 365, 2010. see the original photo on posterous, or the whole collection.

Ooh. Try this.

Pound a chicken breast thin. Dump it in a bowl with a beaten egg, and then dredge it in a mixture of bread crumbs, various tasty herbs of your choosing, and some grated Parmesan cheese. Sautee it in some olive oil. While that's going, go get yourself some butter, about half a lemon's juice, a glob of your favorite honey mustard (or, y'know, some honey and some mustard), and a spoonful of capers.

(you can tell what a precise cook I am by my highly professional terminology, no?)

Remove the chicken to a plate and turn the heat to low. Let the pan cool for a minute or two and add other stuff. Start scraping it, while it cooks down/sorta-glazes. Dump it on your crispy, parm-y chicken.

And then eat it, hard. And a salad too or something.

It's good.

:)

Friendship is one of the greatest gifts a human being can receive. It is a bond beyond common goals, common interests, or common histories. It is a bond stronger than sexual union can create, deeper than a shared fate can solidify, and even more intimate than the bonds of marriage or community. Friendship is being with the other in joy and sorrow, even when we cannot increase the joy or decrease the sorrow. It is a unity of souls that gives nobility and sincerity to love. Friendship makes all of life shine brightly. Blessed are those who lay down their lives for their friends.

Henri Nouwen

here it is: the finished ikea desk i referred to earlier this week. it is mighty tall and mighty ... dark. it keeps the computer and its dense undergrowth of power bricks and cables out of sight until needed and it would also be a great place to hide if you were playing hide and go seek or if you were a spy and couldn't afford to plant a microphone in our living room due to budget cuts. i am now moving on to the next furniture assembly project, which is storage shelves for the garage.

taken with my cell phone for project 365, 2010. see the original photo on posterous, or the whole collection.

Wow. I just had some chopped, sautéed chicken over a small lil' bit of brown rice, covered in a pinnapple-lime glaze. Holy moly, that sure worked out OK. Spinach and cranberry salad on the side, total prep and cook time of maybe 15 minutes.

And I made two servings, so lunch tomorrow is all set. Woot.

I called in sick yesterday and spent two hours of my morning feeling guilty about it. I wasn't feeling like I was going to die or anything. I could have carried on. Then I stopped feeling guilty when I realized how crappy I was truly feeling. I napped for three hours. Oh the stomach pain, it increased as the day progressed. I was feeling like I was going to throw up to varying degrees all day. By 9:30 I was ready for bed again.

In contrast, this morning I woke up abruptly at 7:38 and had to be at a doctors appointment in town by 8:00 and for sure had to shower since I hadn't the day before. I was sure my BP was going to be through the roof. However, I had the BP of an athlete and my weight was down 5 pounds from my last visit! Considering the past two months I consider that a victory. I told her my hair was falling out. She took my blood. I actually left feeling quite encouraged. I think partially because she said "diet and exercise" are probably the remedies to my health woes. I HATE medication and I know I can do "diet and exercise" I actually miss it. I get blood and "other" results in two weeks.

My brother is getting married in April. I'd like to loose 20 pounds before then. That's probably aiming a little high but if I don't hit that I won't be crying. Mom and dad have been loosing weight too so we are racing against one another. The person who looses the most wins $60. I lost 40 pounds last year and kept it off. I'd like to do the same this year. Totally doable. And that loss would put me well below the LONG coveted 200 mark. I haven't been that small since Jr. High. I'm tall okay.

While the stress of the later part of 2009, unduly made me feel like a failure, over all 2009 was a year of great successes. The weight loss for one and I remained a non-smoker for a year. That is I hit my year mark in 2009...and then three days later had a cigarette. I actually don't feel bad about this and also know that I never want to be a smoker again. I did slip up frequently during Light of Christmas but it's a new year and I'm back on the band wagon. Also in 2009 I established a successful counseling relationship with my pastor. I still look forward to it weekly and I can see growth. It also make me feel like less of an insane person.

In other good news. I feel my sense of humor coming back.

I took a half a day of work off and am baby sitting this morning. Babies, why do I frequently have the impulse to bite them.

Today i send off a very formal letter of complaint to Best Buy's Corporate Office. When I took my computer in to have the hard drive replaced they had my computer for TWO MONTHS and "deleted" ALL my music pictures and documents. Not cool. I was offered $100 in iTunes gift cards to make up for it. I'm hoping for major in store credit or money. I'll keep you posted.

• 19:16 I favorited a YouTube video -- Chainlink extreme 4x4 youtu.be/w_F7QrR4Ur8?a #

tonight we went to our first childbirth-related class: a one-evening special on labor pain management. we learned some techniques for relaxation and distraction and watched an extremely graphic video. later this week--the day after tomorrow, to be precise--we start the 7-week childbirth class series offered by the hospital where champ will be born. it is a little surreal to be getting this close to the big day: we have hardly more than a couple of months to go.

taken with my cell phone for project 365, 2010. see the original photo on posterous, or the whole collection.

Suddenly my 695 songs on my iPod are 274.  Where oh where did my music go???  iPod you frustrate me!  And...my home sharing isn't working.  Why torture me?

:/

Apparently, you CAN spoil a newborn.

I am quickly becoming hooked on www.newsmap.jp -- thanks to my husband for the link. This news aggregator is so clean, organized, and current, with no ads or fluff junk to slow it down or distract. Best of all? Easy non-alarmist access to world news!

Count on Japan to come up with something so cool. Just wanted to share. :-)

At this moment, I am fascinated by the following titles:

1. Of Burj and Babel
2. Buffett Uses Clout to Cancel Blank Check for Cadbury Offer
3. Pomegranates May Stall Breast Cancer
4. United States Ends 22 Year HIV Travel Ban
5. Producers Guild of America Awards Rocket Three Sci-Fi Films to the Top
6. Red-State Politics + Blue-State Aliens = Box Office Green
7. Strike on CIA Base Tests US Assessment of Al Qaeda
8. EU Seeks Rules on Body Scanners
9. Google Reveals Nexus One 'Super Phone'
10. Dubai's Symbol of Dependence
11. UNICEF Rushes Aid to Tsunami Victims in Solomon Islands
12. Gilbert Arias Doesn't Have Gun Permit

What do you think the things we choose to read have to say about our interests and personalities?

• 14:05 I favorited a YouTube video -- Funny Fake Floor Board Hot Water Prank Hilarious youtu.be/f7p3VXZ7N0Q?a #

One of the most comments I've ever gotten on a Facebook post, was a link to this video, captioned with a simple "I miss the Smashing Pumpkins":



And I do miss them- they're very tied to a specific era and a specific group of friends that was only in my life for a very short time. Mostly I just miss being young and the '90s; one of my friends had a birthday party the other night, and I was jealous of her and her older friend because they lived in the area during the '90s, which still seems overly glamorous to me (and by glamourous, I mean grungey ;)...). Meanwhile, Billy Corgan is dating Jessica Simpson, James Iha is in a band with one of the Hanson brothers, and D'arcy moved to a farm in Michigan and has dropped off the face of the earth except for random call-ins to Chicago radio stations.

( Long thoughts on capital punishment, hunting, and Mennonites )

You know- I can write thousands upon thousands of words in LJ daily, but trying to apply this output level to my novel is ... failing. Miserably. I need to come up with something soon, too. *sigh*

here is a secret about me: i love getting new glasses. when i was 12 years old, my literary heros were young men like encyclopedia brown and danny dunn, mostly bespectacled characters who used Logic and Science to solve mysteries and get out of tight spots. you cannot imagine the joy with which i received the news that i, too, would require corrective lenses for the rest of my natural life. even today, every time i acquire a new pair--this is my first in about 4 years--i feel just a little smarter, and i opt for glasses over contacts on days when i feel my mental acuity might be called into question.

taken with my cell phone for project 365, 2010. see the original photo on posterous, or the whole collection.

Carl and I just got home- we spent all day at the new house. Our nanny doesn't get home until today, and her niece had to go to school today, so I took the day off to watch the baby, and Carl worked from home. So, around 10 a.m., we headed over to the new house to meet the electrician there.

The remodeling thus far, has been an exercise in disappointment. The foundation repair people, while they did stabilize the foundation, did not fix the ... leany-ness of the house. So, now we're talking to the general contractor about potential flooring options to smooth out the 3-inch-ish drop between the northeast and southwest corners of the house. Well, today, the electrician got there, and brought the wrong replacement electrical panel.

Still, I helped Carl take the hardware off of all the cabinets he demo'ed earlier this month while Catelyn slept, and got to enjoy hanging out with Catelyn when she was awake. I like six-month-olds much more than three-month-olds, I think, though you do trade in more awareness of the world for less lengthy naps.

And I got to meet the general contractor, and we worked out a general design for the kitchen, thank goodness! As in a design that will allow us to know exactly what size cabinets we need to order from the cabinet supplier, which is cool. Only thing is is that our contractor seems really attached to getting the cabinets from this one supplier, and they were not very helpful to us this weekend, where another supplier was (there's a cubic ton of cabinet warehouses just south of Seattle's downtown, so we walked the strip). We also found an awesome lighting/hardware store, Rejuvenation, which we'll investigate if our budget ever recovers enough from remodeling a kitchen and bathroom to consider changing around hardware and lighting ;) I mean, with lights like this, how can you not love them?

So we figured out the kitchen design, but we're waffling on the cabinetry. We were going to go with white cabinets and a dark countertop, but white shows traffic, and we have a small kitchen, and painting wood white costs extra. So now we're leaning towards a light wood, probably an oak-ish color. And we think we may have picked out a counter. But who knows, really? So many decisions to make.

Oh, and the worst disappointment of the day? Still no phone chargers. Carl's last phone finally ran out of charge tonight- he thinks he has an extra charger at work, which is good, but I really, really miss my phone. :-/

Loud Twitter (the service that ships Twitter posts to blogs once a day) isn't working for me, so it's back to the intermittent posts thing. I will continue to surface when I can.

In the meantime, last call for my 2009 mix. Sign up here if you haven't already.

Also, I have a friend who's asked for some recommendations for novels for her 9-year-old and 13-year-old daughters. I've given her recommendations in the past, but I spent most of last year reading vampire novels & flipping through pop science books without reading them, and I'm having trouble coming up with a new list (not that I wouldn't have enjoyed pop science and vampires when I was 13). Any YA or YA-friendly recs?

Finally, I'm *very* pleased to be able to report that the Carl Brandon Society has announced the winners for the 2006 & 2007 awards (visit our awards page for details). We'll be presenting the awards at Arisia in Boston January 15-18. I'll be there. Let me know if you will, too. We're planning to do the 2008 & 2009 awards this year, which means if all goes well, by this time next year, we'll be caught up. We're accepting nominations for 2009 now (the nominations form is also on the awards page).

What I have determined from such a whirlwind break and then re-entry into the workplace is:  I dislike the culture at the school where I teach.  Discussions with coworkers today have felt all wrong, just a little off...everyone eager to look toward their computers instead of facing each other and just sitting, visiting, catching up. 

There was a distinct difference between where I was yesterday and where I found myself today.  In Mexico, you know...I watched the people.  The biggest difference was the lack of cell phones.  I mean, there were locals who had them, but there was a definite lack of preoccupation with them.  I also noticed that men held their womens' hands on the bus and displayed affection.  People looked the same on the bus there as they do everywhere...tired, looking for their stop.  But there was a difference.  I liked it.  I observed, took note and I definitely liked the differences that I saw.

I can't hide my suntanned face.  I didn't offer up information about my trip unless I was asked.  But what I noticed was people would ask and then get preoccupied when I started telling them about the trip.  Why bother?

*sigh*  Sometimes I think I was born too late.

Until we meet again...