Monday, October 11, 2004

I was awakened sharply when the newsreader on the radio announced that Christopher Reeve died yesterday after lapsing into a coma after suffering a heart attack a few days earlier. He was 52. Very shocking and sad.

Then, while I was posting this, I heard the announcement of baseball player Ken Caminiti’s death, also of a heart attack that was most likely the result of his steroid use. He was 41.

Not intending to sound crass here, but I believe that completes the latest round in the celebrity death trifecta that began with the death of Rodney Dangerfield last week. (I subscribe to the theory that celebrities die in threes.)

Sunday, October 10, 2004

Good Sunday. Got to laze about the apartment this morning since I wasn’t on worship team this week. I did a little blog reading and book reading while drinking my morning coffee. I eventually got ready for church and headed out for that.

Church was good. It was fun to watch CootieGirl prance about in her hot pink tweed suit - she’s quite the fashion plate. And she prances - she knows exactly how cute she is and plays up to everyone’s ooohs and aaaahs. It’s rather hilarious. CootieBoy did was all 6-week old babies do - chilled out in his car seat.

After church Jaynee went out with one of her friends for lunch and a movie. So Dad went to buy lunch and Mom and I headed to their house to eat and babysit. Well, the grandparents babysat, I left to go to my future house to unload the Highlander of about 0.1% of my stuff. While I was there, ECD and I roamed her house and discussed the adding of my furniture and what of her stuff will be moved and how we’ll coordinate that.

I returned the Highlander to Mom’s garage and chatted with my Dad for a bit as the others were all napping. I was just getting ready to leave when I heard my mother coming up from the basement with CootieGirl. So I hung around for a little longer. CootieGirl is just like her mama when she first wakes up - a little cranky and out of sorts. I think she was a little weirded out by waking up in a strange house with no sign of Mama (despite having been in the house for about 4 days now).

I was on the floor playing with CootieGirl when without thinking about it, I blew a bubble with the gum I had been chewing for a while. CootieGirl wasn’t looking, but when it popped she jumped a little and looked up and at the sight of the gum stuck to my nose, she backed away and started wimpering. No way. Kids are never scared of bubble gum!

I blew another bubble while she watched and she started crying. But she let me pick her up and I gave her to Mom and tried another bubble and she was frantic. How weird is that? Fortunately, I don’t think I scarred her for life - she hugged me again and gave me a kiss before I went home.

I’m participating in Bryan’s Presidential Prayer effort - the challenge is to pray for the President for the last 30 days of the election. I carry the flame today.

Father, You are the Creator of the earth and sovereign above all nations. We put our whole trust and faith in You and Your will, which we don’t always understand or like, but that we know is in our best interest and welfare. I know that President Bush trusts You as well, as he’s said as much countless times. We lift him up to you in prayer today and everyday - as the leader of our nation and as an influencer in the world at large. Lord, we pray that in all things, in all circumstances, in every aspect, President Bush will above all seek Your will. We pray that he will seek Your wisdom through Your holy Word and in constant prayer with You. He has said that he values knowing that his fellow Americans lift him up in prayer - Lord, we pray that You will continue to guide and sustain him, to give him encouragement and peace, and that he will have the blessed assurance every day that You are with him. We are grateful to have a man who does seek Your will as our President. We pray Your blessings on him for his faithfulness and steadfastness in the face of sometimes harsh criticism and difficult decisions. We pray Your blessings on his family and thank You for them as well - for their sacrifice for his public service and intense scrutiny. We lift all of these concerns in Your Son’s precious name of Jesus. Amen.

Saturday, October 09, 2004

Mom, Jaynee, CootieGirl, CootieBoy, and I went to visit our newest cousin this afternoon. Baby Natalie is CootieGirl and CootieBoy’s third cousin? We’re confused on the relationships at this new generational level in our family. The three babies are my grandmother’s great grandchildren. Anyway, it was fun to see everyone.

After we left, Mom, Jaynee, and the kids came to my apartment to “shop” in my closet. Since I’m moving, I’m looking to do some serious downsizing. Both took bags full of clothes and Mom took one for charity as well. CootieGirl took a little bag filled with a few stuffed animals - she loves to “shop.”

The kids are way too adorable. CootieGirl is a busy, chattering, happy little girl. Her chatter is mostly gibberish, but she definitely knows what things are. She’s constantly pointing at things and we dutifully name them for her. CootieBoy is such a boy. He’s got a husky voice and he works up to a real cry with these whimpers - I’m thinking he’s got the husky voice because of his crying style. He’s a wiggly little thing and he looks just like the pictures at his blog. So cute.

While we were all in my bedroom, my sister chimed up with, “OK, Grandma, don’t you ever dust?” (Our grandmother never dusts.) And I have to admit that dusting is my least favorite of all of the household chores. I’m more diligent about the front rooms that other people see, not so much my own bedroom, which is a wreck pretty much all of the time. So after they left, I was inspired by my embarrassment and proceeded to dust my bedroom. When I got to the computer desk, I cleared everything off and sorted through the various papers - a keep pile and a trash pile. In the midst of the random papers that were on my desk was The List! Eureka!

Christmas on my Dad’s side of the family has been saved. I will send out the annual email post haste.

How many of you were wondering what the post title meant when I started talking about my cute niece and nephew?

John Howard to be re-elected in Australia.

SYDNEY, Australia Oct. 9, 2004 — Australian Prime Minister John Howard’s Liberal Party took a substantial lead over the opposition in nationwide elections Saturday, and both sides said the government, a steadfast U.S. ally in the Iraq war, was all but certain to retain power.

With about 60 percent of votes tallied, Howard’s government had a 52.2 percent of the vote and Labor 47.8 percent, Australian Electoral Commission figures showed. At least one government minister was ready to declare Howard had won a fourth term.

Howard sent 2,000 troops to Iraq last year despite protests that portrayed him as Bush’s lackey.

Howard’s Iraq policy became an issue this week after chief U.S. weapons hunter Charles Duelfer found Saddam Hussein did not have a weapons of mass destruction program at the time of last year’s invasion a major reason advanced by Bush, Blair and Howard for the war.

“I believed the intelligence and it’s a disappointment to me that the intelligence has not been borne out,” Howard told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio Friday. “You have to make decisions based on the information you have at the time, and the information we had at the time justified what we did.”

Howard used his last news conference of the campaign to attack Labor’s plan to withdraw troops from Iraq.

“If Australia were to cut and run from Iraq, it would send a very bad signal to the world,” he said.

I watched the debate with my mother and sister. We had just finished a fabulous birthday dinner for Mom so I stayed to watch the debate at my parents’ house.

I think that President Bush did very well last night. Why didn’t that guy show up at the first debate last week? He was fantastic in the first 30-45 minutes, although he did miss some opportunities to skewer some of Senator Kerry’s answers. I missed some stuff at points since I was holding CootieBoy and he was a little fussy.

I was really hoping he would jump on the continued line from Kerry about “rebuilding our alliances” - in light of the Duelfer report about the role of France, Germany, and Russia and the UN Oil for Food program briberies, he had the perfect chance to reduce the argument that those “allies” were important to the coalition to shreds. I realize that he’s got to deal with those leaders as the President, so I understand that’s why he didn’t do it. But that would have decimated Kerry’s points.

I also wanted to hear him rebut Kerry’s repeat of the 90% of the casualties in Iraq are ours - nevermind that the Iraqis are actually being killed and injured in larger numbers these days. The terrorists over there have clearly targeted the citizens who want to enlist in the Iraqi Army or as police.

Funny Bush malapropism from last night: internets - We looked at each other and cracked up.

Overall, I’d say that Bush edged Kerry last night. I’m interested to see what people will be saying about it this morning.

LATER: I’m catching up on the debate blogging from last night. James at OTB live blogged. Some early snark:

These questions absolutely suck! “Senator Kerry, would you have the same Iraq policy as President Bush?” WTF?! Charlie Gibson picked them so either, 1) he’s an idiot or 2) these were the cream of the crop. Given that the room is full of definitional morons, I suspect the latter.

Oh, yeah, he reminded me of the

Funniest moment of the night: Kerry gives some example about Bush owning a timber company and being counted as a small business for tax purposes. Bush says, “I own a timber company? That’s news to me!” After a long pause, he asks “Anybody want to buy some wood?” Classic.

Friday, October 08, 2004

***SURVIVOR SPOILERS AHEAD***

Why didn’t they boot Rory? Honestly, I thought they would have wised up that they needed to keep around a couple of the young, athletic guys in order to make it to the merge. I was wrong. Their strategery sucks. Such idiots are those men.

The women of Yasur are kicking booty and taking names. Say what you will about their petty cat-fighting, when it comes time to do a task, they do it well.

I was persusing a catalog and noticed a cool item that I thought would make a nice Christmas gift for one of my aunts. So I called my mother to get her thoughts on the idea and her first response was, “Did you draw her name?”

My answer, “I can’t remember.”

On my Dad’s side of the family, we draw names for Christmas gifts because there are quite a few of us. Only the adults (you’re an adult if you’ve 1) graduated from high school and are working full time or b) graduated from college) draw names.  We’re almost all adults - there are 2 cousins still in school (one in college, the other in high school) and one of my other cousins just had a baby a few weeks ago. Fortunately, the new mother cousin was engaged last Christmas, so I think her husband was included in the name drawing.

Anyway, somehow I’ve become the keeper of The List of names, although I tried to get out of it this time because I lost The List last year. They all should have listened to me, because I’ve lost The List again, dang it. So now the hunt for The List begins, because now is about the time that I need to send out the reminder email to the family with The List.

*sigh*

Her children arise and call her blessed;
her husband also, and he praises her:
“Many women do noble things,
but you surpass them all.”
Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.
Give her the reward she has earned,
and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

Thursday, October 07, 2004

Bill Whittle of Eject! Eject! Eject! always writes good stuff. Last night I happened upon his latest essays, Deterrence (Part 1) and Deterrence (Part Two). I’ve only read part one so far, but it’s must reading. And it’s too hard to excerpt properly, but here’s a good snippet:

It all comes down to carrots (liberals) or sticks (conservatives). By the way: if you’re in a rush and need to run, here’s the spoiler: You can offer a carrot. Not everybody likes carrots. Some people may hate your carrot. Your carrot may offend people who worship the rutabaga. But no one likes being poked in the eye with a stick. That’s universal.

I’m a stick man. I wish it were different. But part of growing up – in fact, the essential part of growing up – is realizing that wishing does not make it so.

Folks, it’s time to reach down deep and get in touch with our inner adult.

[via matt (last night) and bill (this afternoon)]

OK, so it turns out that Saddam didn’t have actual WMD in hand (although he desperately wanted them and was working toward getting them), but I’m thinking that in addition to liberating an oppressed people and ridding the world of a terrorist-supporting regime, our invasion of Iraq did the world a larger favor in exposing the UN/Iraq oil for food scandal.

So how soon can we kick the UN out of the US? Let the French have ‘em.

I’m in need of boxes. But until I weed through and empty some boxes at home or get some from other sources, I’ll be packing the stuff that I can in my luggage. So I packed my body bag sized duffle bag full of extra bed linens and towels. I also pulled out my Christmas stuff since I won’t be needing that. I brought those things to the office to hand over to ECD.

I’ll try to take advantage of the long weekend to do some serious clearing out of junk to free up some boxes. Jaynee and the kids are coming down for the weekend, so I won’t get as much done, but I’m determined to get something done. And I’ll do another hand off of stuff at church on Sunday.

I’m hoping that my moving a lot of small stuff on a near daily basis will help make the big move later much easier. We’ll see how that works.

I just realized that I’ve never lived in one abode for longer than about 3.5 years in my whole life? I’m 37 years old. That’s kinda crazy.

Wednesday, October 06, 2004

My boss offered a cell phone to me since he travels a lot between the three offices and it’ll be easier for him to Direct Connect me anytime than try to call a phone. So I now have a nice new Nextel phone riding my hip. I was able to keep my personal cell phone number and that transfer went through yesterday. And I no longer have a cell phone bill each month (once I’ve paid off the penalty for breaking my contract).

Now comes the hassle of entering everyone into the address book, but the cool thing is that Nextel has an online service where you can add that information and then download it to your phone. It’s a lot easier to type all of the people on a real keyboard without having to set up the contact and then just click a button to send it to the phone. I love technology sometimes.

Already my ECD is chirping me almost to death on the Direct Connect, but I know that will be greatly reduced when I move into the house. She chirped me yesterday to ask if I wanted Starbucks - she and a few other deputies were returning from a jail run. She chirped me this morning while I was driving in to ask me who sings a particular song (I didn’t know the answer - ask me anything about TV and movies and I will most likely have an answer - music, not so much my area of expertise).

I’m around, I just don’t have much to say. Well, that’s not quite true, I have plenty to say, but I don’t want to violate the Hatch Act, so I’m keeping mum while at work. By the time I get home, my brain is done with the thinking thing so I don’t bother to try to reconstruct any thoughts I had through the day.

Blogging will be light for the next couple of months - I will be packing stuff in the evenings from now until I move. Work is increasing, so blogging while at the office is becoming rarer as you may have noticed. I’m not commenting as much at other blogs lately either - makes me wonder if I’ve run out of things to say.

Laura Ingraham had the most hilarious sum up of Senator Edwards’ final two minute speech to the jury voters - he won the Walton’s vote with that homespun tale. “Goodnight, John Boy!” Heh.

She also got a few chuckles from the appearance of “Thumbkin” - I think she said something to the effect that Thumbkin isn’t going to defeat Zarqawi or Bin Laden. Heh heh.

It’s probably obvious which one I think won the debate hands down. But I do think that the Senator did pretty well. He does have that Ken doll thing in his favor, I suppose, although I tend not to trust a man who’s that blow-dried with my or national security. But people have to make that decision for themselves.