Merry Christmas

It certainly has been this year! Having to only work 2 half days this week and next week doesn't hurt either (Thanks IBM!).

Tuesday night we had the opportunity to see some old friends (they are not OLD, just no longer living here!) as we all got together at the Green Mill. It was wonderful to get together with everyone, talk, joke, and laugh.

Wednesday - VACATION! I took advantage of the down time to go to Caribou and spend a couple hours just reading. While the driving there wasn't really all that nice - everyone and their brother must have been out shopping - the quiet time at Caribou was great. I met friend Shelley for a leisurely lunch and then headed over to friend Bill's to hang out and watch a couple of movies. Wednesday evening was nice and low-key - bowl games, egg sandwiches, and kitties.

Thursday, for the first time in 12 years, I attended the Christmas morning worship service at my church. I'm not usually here on Christmas morning, and honestly I have always wanted to go because it's a smaller, quieter, more intimate service. This year was a great choice for my first one - good musical friends the Hammonds sang a beautiful trio (what singing talent in that family), and there was a string quartet doing much of the music - my church just has talented musicians coming out of the woodwork. A wonderful morning! And just enough time afterward to leisurely pack up and for Erin and I to hit the road. First to Roseville and my wonderful cousins, who filled us up with lunch, cookies, and the most decadant carmel dessert I've ever tasted (insulin shot included). After some fun time and conversation with them, another 45 minutes and we were at sister's house to meet up with the family. All sorts of present-opening with the kids, and fun for everyone. Displayed below are a couple of the fun gifts going on (yes that is a Chia Scooby Doo, yes they still make Chia Pets, and yes it hasn't changed in 20+ years).

Another nice relaxed day on Friday - brother-in-law made wonderful breakfast (and sister made coffee), and more playing with toys, watching new DVDs, playing euchre (cards), and pizza for a late afternoon lunch/snack. We finally decided it was time to leave before the weather got bad (it was raining but was still well above freezing at that point) and headed home, making a quick stop at IKEA to pick up a desk I had ordered earlier (it was not really that busy). Besides some very dense fog, we made it home without any slippery roads, and in plenty of time to play with the kitties - not having seen them for nearly 2 days we missed them!

Today is time to put together a desk (really not that hard). Blessings and safe travels to all this week and next!

By the power vested in Shelley and IBM...

Last night, after going to the Barnes & Noble downtown (I'm amazed I actually went to a retail store 3 days before Christmas, but the downtown store wasn't all that busy), Erin and I headed over to friends Shelley & Ryan's house to borrow Shelley's amazing powers of notarization. We decided a few weeks ago that it would be wise to get the necessary paperwork done with IBM for domestic partnership, so that, if necessary in the future, Erin could go on my health insurance. The main pre-requisite is to fill out a form provided by IBM Human Resources and have it notarized. We were honored to be stamped by Shelley :)

(I was going to title this based on the quote from the Brak Show "Thanks for nothing Don Tickles, Notary Public!" but I doubt most people would get it. Some say he grew a beard and still lives here...)

Christmas Eve Eve Eve Eve

(yeah lame title I know, couldn't come up with anything better pre-coffee)

Last night (Sunday) was my church's (27th) annual Festival of Lessons & Carols at St. Mary's hospital chapel. Erin and friend Bill attended to watch. While it probably wasn't as packed as some years, it was still a pretty full house and the music was wonderful as usual. Everything went so smoothly that we were back at church unloading and done by about 9:10pm! That has to be a record...I really enjoy being a part of it all every year - this year I directed on 3 bell songs, played on 5, and tolled the bell at the beginning. In-between all that I just got to listen and enjoy the wonderful sounds of choirs, harps, brass, french horn choirs, and pianos. Bill, Erin, and I stopped in at the Honker afterwards and by the time I got home I was exhausted and fell right to sleep.

We've certainly been getting lots of "Minnesota" weather - two big snows the past 4 days, and sub-zero temps. This is more like what I expect here. I was dreading snowblowing Sunday morning but it actually went pretty well. The neighbor's snow blower was in the shop so he borrowed it to do his driveway, and later brought over homemade treats as a thank you. In addition to all the cookies we got at the cookie party we went to on Saturday, we are pretty well set.

Looking forward to a fun week of working half days, seeing friends and family and just enjoying winter in Minnesota.

I did learn a couple things yesterday with respect to Christmas cards.

1. OpenOffice is a fantastic program for free, but there are a few bells and whistles that it doesn't have that MS Word does.
2. No matter how much you want to save a little money and reduce plastic/paper usage, it is NOT worth it to try and run envelopes through your printer (instead of just buying a few sheets of labels and being done with it in 5 minutes). Do NOT attempt this at home.

I'll leave you with the Madame Sparkles happy food dance that she does whenever it's feeding time.

In Memory of Majel Barrett

Actress Majel Barrett passed away yesterday, at the age of 76.

http://www.roddenberry.com/FirstLadyofStarTrekMajelBarrettRoddenberryPassesAway.257.news

For those of you who are not Trek fans, Majel Barrett was married to the creator of Star Trek Gene Roddenberry. She was heavily integrated into many of the Star Trek series', including playing Nurse Chapel in the original series, recurring character Lwaxana Troi (Deanna Troi's mother) in the Next Generation and Deep Space 9, and of course was the beloved voice of the ship's computer in many of the shows. She had just finished her computer voice-over work for the next movie. She was a wonderful actress and will be missed.

Nirvana baby...17 years later

I don't know why I found this one so funny but it is

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1598985/20081110/nirvana.jhtml

Flowcharts for Dummies

For those not in the Minnesota area, it has been VERY cold and snowy the past couple of days. So thankful the snow blower is working fairly well this year. And glad I didn't have to go anywhere last night :) Tonight I get to hang out with a fun 3-year-old while his parents are out.

Your fun geeky picture for the day (thanks to friend Ryan for this one):

Weekend and upcoming week

First, some shameless self-promotion (ok this really isn't "self" promotion). My church, Zumbro Lutheran, is doing it's 27th annual service of Lessons & Carols this Sunday evening, at St. Mary's Hospital chapel. If you've never been to St Mary's chapel, it's a beautiful place to sit and listen to an evening of wonderful Christmas music. It is free and open to the public. My church has done this for 27 years as a gift to the patients and staff of the hospital as well as the community. Some highlights this hear include a harp player, a liturgical dance group, a french horn choir, as well as the standard vocal and handbell choirs (I play in one and direct one).

http://www.zumbrolutheran.org/carolsposter.pdf

This was a good, albeit busy week. Monday we got whole bunches of snow, which was kind of fun (now that my snow blower works well). On Wednesday, I took the day off of work - Wednesday was designated "A Day Without Gays", where GLBT people were supposed to take off work as a symbolic protest to the passage of Proposition 8. I went with friends Bill, Jay and Eric to the Twin Cities. We hit IKEA first, as I had been wanting to get another desk chair, and price out an additional desk to match the one I had for Erin, and Bill also wanted to look at and possibly get some household items. We walked over to Mall of America afterwards and had lunch at Cafe California, and then headed to "Uptown" to the Landmark Uptown Theater (the oldest theater in Minneapolis, the only theater with balcony seating, and still technically the largest screen) to see the movie "Milk". We got there early and had coffee at a Dunn Brothers nearby - Uptown Minneapolis is a really neat area, lots of older buildings, very "city". The movie was fantastic - it talks about the life of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay person elected to a major office, all of the things gays had to go through in the 70s, and ultimately Harvey's murder.

By Friday I was so worn out that I fell asleep around 8:00pm. Saturday morning we had a make-up bell rehearsal because of the big Monday night snow, which took up most of the morning. Saturday evening friends Jay and Eric had a Christmas party at their house, which included a movie trivia game on the XBox 360. The more I see of the XBox the more I like - now you can stream NetFlix movies to it if you have a NetFlix subscription. Sunday morning was back to church to play for the service and then Peer Ministry afterwards. Sunday night we had a bunch of friends over for dinner and festivities, including playing with little LP, or rather watching him chase the cats around the house.

Mike Huckabee's interview on the Daily Show (~ 6 1/2 minutes long)

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Mike Huckabee Pt. 2

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

In all fairness, I have to say that he at least attempts to explain his argument instead of just saying "It's wrong, that's it", or just not talk about it at all. I think Jon Stewart brings up some good points too. The part I don't like is that he brings up that a majority of voters voted in 30 states to uphold "traditional marriage" - which to me really means it's ok to discriminate as long as a majority of voters agree, which is obviously bad.

It's also been brought up many times that this is "re-defining" marriage - and while, strictly speaking it is, we've been re-defining marriage since the beginning of time, including defining it as both a legal and a religious institution.

Newsweek article on marriage

Big thanks for friend Shelley for posting this on her blog. This is one of the most comprehensive articles on marriage I've ever read.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/172653/page/1

Story time...

Thanks to friend Andy for originally posting this one:

Fire and Ice

"Oh the weather outside is frightful" is probably appropriate the past couple of days - really this is typical Minnesota, but usually January not December. We had two pretty good bunches of snow, combined with our first sub-zero night last night. Really though the weather has been pretty good - the ice/freezing rain they promised last night didn't happen, and besides being cold getting around is ok.

This has been an action-packed week. Friday night fortunately was some down time after a very busy week of work and activities. We stayed home and had Erin's wonderful chicken soup, hot tea, and played games and watched some shows we have fallen behind on (Ugly Betty is just so funny these days!)

Saturday was dedicated to the Blue Moon gig my band Fuego had going on that night. Around 2:00 Martial showed up and we started loading everything - an interesting process in 10-degree snowy windy weather but we got it all in and headed over to the Blue Moon. One of the Diego Sanchez dance lessons was going on as we were setting up, which was fun to watch - he's REALLY good, both as a dancer as an instructor. Finally by 6:00 we had everything set up and sound checked and were out of there.

The big moment finally arrived as we got back at 8:00 and after another Diego dance lesson group we kicked off the evening at 8:30. I know I'm biased, but we really sounded good - it's so much fun to play for a lively crowd with great musicians - the energy just keeps feeding back and forth and by the end of the first set we were rockin' (or "salsa-in'" to be more correct I guess). We rocked the house in the second set - we have one heavy jazz/blues song we have been throwing in adding our own flavor to it, and the crowd just ate it up. And after the second break, a song from the CD was playing and we just spontaneously started playing with it, and kept the groove going for another 4 minutes or so - everyone ate that one up too. We finished off with what I think is probably our best song now and it was just fun. Teardown, off to my house at 12:30am to unload, and by 1:00 I was too wired to go to bed :) Complete set of pictures below.

Blue Moon gig December 2008

I did manage to get a little sleep before waking up and meeting friend Bill for coffee and a much-needed big breakfast. I'm sure at some point here I'll crash and need a nap...for now I'm just enjoying the great feeling of yesterday and watching the snow slowly come down and the kitties chase each other around.

En Fuego

One last shameless self-promotion for my latin/salsa band "Fuego" which will be playing this Saturday:

Where: Blue Moon Ballroom
When: Saturday, December 6th, 8:30pm-11:30pm
What: "Let's Salsa", with guest Diego Sanchez, Champion Salsa Dancer, sponsored by the Rochester Salsa Community

Admission is $10 at the door, cash bar and refreshments also available. $15 if you come at 7:30pm for the dance lesson given by Diego. Besides this being a huge event for the Salsa Community, this is the best my band has sounded in a long time! We have a great show with a full slate of songs planned.

For all the cat lovers (and geeks)

TiVo Guilt

This article from friend Shelley's blog was so good I had to repost it:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/TV/12/02/tivo.guilt/index.html

I SO have TiVo guilt, and an associated phenomenon, DVD backlog guilt. By the time you have whole seasons of things available (either on DVD or because you put off watching them on TiVo) it seems like a daunting task to start into them.

There is yet another spin-off phenomenon I've experienced because of the DVR technology era - TiVo Partner guilt. When I got my first TiVo, the "guilt" was just making sure I didn't delete anything that my old roomate hadn't already had the chance to see too (if it's something he wanted to watch) - yet not running out of space. We had ideas on how there should be ways for each person to mark that they've watched something - and then automatically delete it when everyone has watched it (I'm such a geek I know). NOW, it's a little more complicated - for shows that boyfriend and I watch together, it's the "I shouldn't watch this because I should wait until we watch it together" guilt - given how little our schedules actually line up to do this, I usually end up watching stuff anyway and then feel bad or watch it again because Erin hasn't watched it yet.

Hmmm, maybe we all obsess a little too much about TV....

Thanksgiving Weekend

I hope this entry finds everyone well, full, and blessed after a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.

Before Thursday I had three full days of work - usually this part of the year a lot of people take vacation, and many did last week, but there were still a lot of people at work, and a lot of meetings for me to attend. Combined with handbells on Monday, salsa band on Tuesday, and house preparation Wednesday I was glad to get to Thursday!

(see the complete Thanksgiving photo album here)

Thanksgiving 2008

Thursday morning friend Shelley came over around 10 (really it was about 10:25, but that's 10 for Shelley :) and became Erin's cooking assistant. I ran around the house and finished picking up (really Erin did the majority of the cleaning work the day before so there wasn't much to do) and waited for everyone else to arrive - mom, sister Erin & brother-in-law Chris and the two nieces, plus Shelley's Ryan. After some french press coffee (a first for Shelley), Shelley and I decided 11:46am was an acceptable time to start into the wine, and we had wine and goldfish while Erin finished with the cooking (the goldfish were a kid-friendly topping to the brocoli bake, but in all honesty, I think the adults enjoyed it more).

By 1:00 everything was either done, in the oven, or otherwise ready to go, and everyone started arriving then. Keagann was SO excited to see the cats, and knew them by name already - we had to hunt for Madame Sparkles and it took awhile before she'd come out and see everyone. Laynie was cautious but finally gave the kitties some "loves".

At 3:00 (the time we had actually originally picked!) we all sat down to eat. What a meal! Apricot-glazed turkey, cornbread stuffing, quartered boiled red potatoes, broccoli-cheese bake, cranberry sauce, sweet potato casserole (really almost a dessert, topped with candied pecans), and apple and pumpkin pies for dessert. We had to wait quite awhile to even eat dessert because everyone was so full. We finally did have a slice of pie around 7:30 before Shelley and Ryan had to go home. By then it was getting close to bedtime, so we watched some movies and the kids were off to bed (Keagann insisted on sleeping with grandma). Erin and I got in a game of Warcraft before going to bed.

Friday morning Erin got up early and made orange-glazed french toast for everyone, and bluerries for Laynie. Chris had to get home to get an estimate for his pickup as it had been in an accident recently, but everyone else stayed around for the day. After breakfast and a little "snack" lunch, we headed up to the park - Keagann was SO excited to get up there, and it actually was an ok day, a little windy but nice and sunny and not too cold. We coaxed Keagann back home with the promise of hot cocoa, and by then it was getting time for the big Nebraska vs. Colorado game - a Thanksgiving Friday tradition in the Bye household going back forever (I used to host everyone over at our house growing up). Nebraska won the game in an exciting finish with a 57-yard field goal by Alex Henery, making Bo Pelini's first season 8-4, after last year's horrible 5-7 record (they're actually technically co-champions of the Big 12 north although they lose the tiebreaker to Missouri). They will be off to the Gator Bowl on January 1st.

Erin was meeting friend Caryn for dinner that night, and everyone else was planning on leaving around 7, so after a Papa John's dinner for the girls, we packed up their car and sent them off to home. Caryn and Erin came over after dinner and we chatted and played Mario Kart before I went to bed (they stayed up quite awhile longer).

Saturday - no houseguests and nothing scheduled - it was almost too easy! We went and grabbed coffee and went to Home Depot to look at a couple more things we are looking at doing in the house (a few more shelves, some cabinets for the laundry room, and I want to replace the kitchen sink with a long-neck pull-out sprayer). We intentionally avoided shopping this weekend, and after reading about the guy that was killed as people in a Wal-Mart trampled him Friday morning when the store opened, I think I've decided never to participate in that ugly day of the year ever again. Saturday night Erin went to see friend Dan home for the weekend, and I went about redoing all of the samba shares on my server so that we could more easily share music and pictures across our computers (exciting I know). I also watched the Oklahoma/Oklahoma State game, which turned out to be not much of a game. I officially now hate the BCS, as Oklahoma ended up #2, and Texas #3, despite the fact that Texas beat them on a neutral field and they have the same record. I'm hoping Missouri wins the Big 12 championship so that Texas will possibly be in the national title game.

One last shameless self-promotion before I go - this Saturday, December 6th, my salsa band "Fuego" will be playing at the Blue Moon Ballroom, sponsored by the Rochester Salsa Community's "Diego Sanchez" weekend. Admission is $10 for the dance (8:30-11:30) and $15 if you come at 7:30-8:30 for the dance lesson given by Diego Sanchez. Unlike most Blue Moon nights, this event is for 18 and older, and will have a cash bar, so this is your opportunity to come and have a dance lesson by a salsa dance champion, hear my band, and have some drinks!

GO BIG RED

More on the weekend later....but I have to give it up to my Huskers today, down 30-31 to Colorado with about 2 minutes left in the game, 4th and 25 at the 40, Alex Henery kicks a school record 57-yard field goal to go up 33-31 and win the game. Woohoo! 8-4 and headed to the Gator Bowl.

GO BIG RED....GO BIG RED...

Home Improvement

This weekend has been dedicated to catching up on household projects and getting the house ready for having company this weekend (Mom, Erin, Chris, Keagann, and Laynie coming for Thanksgiving along with friends Shelley & Ryan joining for the big meal). Erin is keeping 4 to-do lists, one is for household projects. Although I helped out with all these projects, I have to give him most of the credit for organizing and getting the work done!

(see the following slide show for the complete set of pictures)

2008-11-22

Saturday, we did some planning and measuring and then off to Home Depot to get supplies. Sadly, they did not have a lot of the shelving supplies we needed in stock, and the person helping us said the ordering system is automated and so things don't get re-ordered until they are all gone - seems strange to me that you'd not re-order when you were down to just a few. We took everything home, made sure it would work, and then headed back out to see if any other places sold the same brand of shelving (unfortunately neither Menards, Lowe's, or Fleet Farm did - and the brands they had, even they wouldn't have had all we needed). We did pick up a nice bathroom mirror at Lowe's. After stopping for lunch at Famous Dave's which Erin was craving, we went back to Home Depot and decided getting all the same color of the shelf backing wasn't necessary, as it is hardly visible, and it's the utility room so who cares. So with that, we had enough to get at least one full wall done.

Got home around 5, first thing we did was put up the mirror - this mirror project has been hanging over my head for like 2 years - I originally bought a mirror, but bought kind of crappy clips to hang it up with, and never got it done, and then on top of that, broke one corner of the mirror moving it around. So getting this done was a big relief to me - it took all of 15 minutes. We then put up a decorative plate holder that is also functional as we have a set of plates that were given to us that we haven't had a good place to put (they've been sitting on the counter). Oddly, someone also recently gave us a wine rack they no longer needed, and it happened to match perfectly with this plate holder - which I had gotten like 4 years ago. This project took a little more doing, including putting in 6 wall clamps to hold up the rack with the dishes. But when it was done, it looked great!

At that point, I wanted to watch the "big" game of the day, Texas Tech vs. Oklahoma (which turned out to be a huge blowout), so Erin started in on a project he had been planning for awhile, to build greenhouse shelves to grow seedlings in (complete with grow lights). He spent a good 3 hours that evening before calling it a night.

Sunday morning, we tried out the new french press (it makes nice strong coffee, which I love, not sure if Erin did or not), and hung out with the kitties and had some breakfast. After getting showers and dressed and ready for the day, it was back to Home Depot to get the actual shelving (Saturday we just got the wall mounts and brackets). Erin also picked up some lag bolts for the greenhouse shelves. We got home, ate some lunch and watched an interesting show on Discovery Health "I'm My Own Twin" which talked about people who are born with two complete sets of DNA - kind of interesting (and demonstrates how using DNA for legal reasons is not completely fool-proof). Erin went back to work on the greenhouse shelves, and after a bit I started working on sorting through some of the boxes in the utility room. Erin got to a stopping point on the greenhouse shelves and we pulled all the boxes out of the corner and pulled out the table in the corner so we could put up the wall shelves. After a couple hours of moving, sorting, and vacuuming, we finally had all the shelves up, boxes on the shelves, some stuff thrown out (or recycled), and the room was clean! All the while the cats were down there "helping" (really just being in the way and nearly being stepped on but it was cute and hard to get mad at :)

By then it was 5:00 and we were ready to be done for the day. Apparently so were the kitties (see the picture below). Three days to get ready for the big dinner.

Catch-up

Here it is Saturday and I haven't really written anything for over a week - looking at my last few posts, they've either been political commentary or re-postings. So the (somewhat) short summary of what's going on with me.

Last weekend, we were fortunate enough to have friends Trevor & Karli from Nebraska visit again (twice in 3 weeks!). After a leisurely morning, we had lunch at McMurphy's with all the college football games on, and then headed over to the new Best Buy south to look around. We decided the afternoon was a good time to go see the new Bond movie (T&K being big fans) so we went to Cinemagic and caught the matinee (they have reduced their prices back to $5 matinees and $7 evenings, nice to see). Afterwards Erin made the chicken & dumplings in the shape of the state of Nebraska that I love so much (see my earlier posts) and we played Rock Band on Trevor's Xbox 360, lots of fun! I had to get up early and do handbells for church the next day, which turned out great - the handbell group this year is really good. Got back home in time to go to lunch at Famous Dave's, and hang out for a bit before they had to start the 5 hour drive home to Omaha. We had a relaxing rest of the day, catching up on household chores and playing with the kittens.

(for an account of how the kittens are doing, see:)

Kitties helping with household chores

This week has been very busy for me - music practices every night Monday - Thursday, in addition to a very busy work schedule going on. Monday handbells, Tuesday and Thursday salsa band (which, after being on the brink of death, is sounding REALLY good!) and Wednesday jazz band. Some shameless self-promotion - my salsa band "Fuego" will be playing at the Blue Moon Ballroom on Saturday, Dec. 6th, from 8:30pm-11:30pm, sponsored by the Rochester Salsa Community "Diego Sanchez" weekend. Since this event is sponsored by the Salsa Community, it is for 18 and older, AND will have a cash bar. Admission is $10 for the entire evening, for anyone who has wanted to come and see the band this will be a great time to do it.

In addition to all the evening music practices, Monday was also the second inter-company GLBT group reception between IBM and Mayo - IBM hosted one in October and Mayo returned the favor Monday. We had a great turnout, and the Mayo people were gracious enough to give us tours, including getting to go up and see the Carillons at the top of the Plummer building - something I had seen once before and is just a neat thing to see (there are only 20 Carillons in the country). I'm looking forward to more interaction between the IBM and Mayo groups next year.

With no scheduled activities on Friday, I had time to go visit friend Michael's work open house at lunch - Michael works for Cardinal of Minnesota and they just opened a fantastic new facility out on the NE side of town and had an open house Friday afternoon. Michael gave me a tour and we chatted for a bit before I had to get back to work. Friday after work, all the people who weren't out sick from the department decided to have Happy Hour at Tilly's, so I stopped over there for a bit. Then off to friends Shelley & Ryan's for dinner with Anne & LP. By 8:30 we were all really tired and when we got home at 9 ready for bed.

Since I no longer seem to have the ability to sleep in, I was up at 6:00am Saturday, but that gave me the opportunity to have coffee with friend Bill, something we both like to do on occasion. Looking forward to a weekend of relaxing and preparation for Thanksgiving, which we are hosting - mom, sister & family are coming down, in addition to S&R joining us for the big meal on Thursday.

Other News

The coffee maker saga is, at least for now, settled - Bed, Bath & Beyond actually took back the one we didn't like (from June) for store credit toward a different one - so Monday Erin picked up a new Mr. Coffee, nothing fancy, but it does have a brew strength setting, and so far it is good. In addition, since this one was cheaper, also got a French Press, and have tried that once and it is good (STRONG!)

50th Avenue construction update - well, I have no confidence now that anything will happen until the spring. I really don't understand why they just sort of wasted all this time between August and now doing nothing - I'm sure they were doing something but it sure didn't seem like it. I've pretty much already worked around the road being closed into my daily routine so I guess a few more months isn't going to kill me.

Gas prices - well at least one good thing has come out of this economic crash - $1.71 this morning, I'm sure this is helping out some people during the holiday season.

All for now - wishing everyone a great and blessed holiday week next week, safe travels for all who are going places.

WAY COOL

Star Wars, technology, and a capella...brought to you by the internet. Truly one of the most creative things I've ever seen.

Erin's Cooking Debut

Erin is featured in Monday's edition of my friend Shelley's cooking blog:

http://shelleybakes.blogspot.com/2008/11/monday-madness-meet-erin-mcintosh_17.html

Shelley is now a paid blogger (another blog she writes about debt management) and is a former newspaper editor so being featured in one of her blogs is pretty cool :)

I pledge allegiance too...

I hesitated whether or not to write an entry for this, because I see and hear so much "stuff" every day on the internet, email forwards, etc. that I usually try not get too excited about any of it and try and pick and choose what's really important. But as I was sitting in church listening to the wonderful sermon (we have fantastic, caring pastors at Zumbro Lutheran), it made me start to think of a whole bunch of stuff related to this one.

The email forward I got yesterday was from a friend of mine, and it was basically a "new" version of the pledge of allegiance, and a "new" version of a school prayer. The basic idea was that it's so unfair that we can't say the pledge with "God" in it anymore, and we can't pray in school anymore because it's "politically incorrect". Basically the same anger and annoyance I hear from so many Christians - that they're taking God out from everything.

I have so many things I want to say about this, but I'm going to try and keep it to a couple of things. First of all - it is very simple to look at history (as well as the current world) and see how completely bad a theocracy is - a government-chosen or government-enforced set of religions or religious beliefs. Horrible horrible things all over history and all over the world have been done "in the name of" fill-in-your-deity - the crusades, slavery, etc. etc. the list goes on and on. All you should ever have to think about when you start to get upset about why our government tries so hard not to mandate one set of religious beliefs over another, is "what if they did, it wasn't the one you believed in?" You see Christians persecuted all over the world in other countries for their beliefs. Just because the majority of our country probably falls under the "Christian" category, that doesn't mean you have the right to push it on the rest of the people who have other beliefs.

So this leads me to my second point - if you call yourself a Christian, shouldn't the way you demonstrate this be to demonstrate the qualities Jesus demonstrated all throughout His life? Love, patience, kindness, respect, compassion, understanding, etc.? Love your neighbor as yourself? No government, no ACLU lawyer, no school principle, no court can or would even try to take away your ability to do that. No one needs a pledge of allegiance with the word "God" in it to do that. No one needs a mandated out-loud school prayer to do that. No one has told you you have to stop praying - last time I checked, I can pray ANY time I want, anywhere I want! So what if it's not out loud? The only reason I can see for praying out loud in a public place is to make sure other people are seeing you do it - that's certainly not the reason I pray.

I am a Christian, I believe God sent his son Jesus to die on the cross for our salvation. I also believe that I best honor this belief by living my life as the best human being I can be toward my fellow human beings. Actions speak louder than words....rather than arguing about it or fighting about it in court, why not try living it for a change?

Keith Olbermann

I used to love watching Keith Olbermann as an ESPN news anchor, but have not really seen much of him since he left that job. I watched this clip of him on MSNBC this morning and WOW, I have a whole new respect for him...I was almost in tears. It is 5 1/2 minutes long, take the time to watch it - it's the same question about prop 8 I've been asking in my head since the election.

Election Reflection

(catchy title huh :)

This week has been interesting - besides the election, I'm now really excited about the bands I'm in, and our salsa band is coming back together (another drummer and excellent new piano player). The weather for November has been odd, but what else is new. I also have to give a shout out to my wonderful cat Mr. Fluffy Face - I accidentally shut him in our office room the other night all night (didn't realize he was still in there) and he did not make a mess or get into stuff he wasn't supposed to when I found him in the morning. I promptly gave him lots of pets and treats. GOOD KITTY!

On to the election - I decided to wait a few days to let things sink in - my last post was at 12:30am the night of, and a little emotional.

No No Drama - it was over by 10:30? Where is the waiting until 3am, calling and then "un"-calling states like Florida, hanging chad, Supreme Court ruling dramas? OK I'm really glad none of that happened :) But what news are they going to report on now?

Barack Obama - I really believe he's going to be a good president. Certainly he'll make mistakes, and he certainly has a very large job ahead of him. But he genuinely seems honest, cares about what's going on in this country, and seems to truly love his wife and children. I loved his comment in the acceptance speech "no government can solve every problem" - it's true. This is a joint effort. We all have to work on solutions.

John McCain - I have to give him credit for being a class act. While I don't agree on how he was going to go about solving our nation's problems, I believe he truly does believe in this country and wants to make things better. His concession speech was given with dignity and grace, and I hope he decides to become a "maverick" again and work with Obama and the administration to get things done. We need people like him working and leading. I do question the people he had surrounded himself with on this campaign, his choice of VP, and seemingly changing his personality overnight to try and pander his "base". I hope the McCain of 2000 is back now.

Sara Palin - well, she did make things more interesting :) And I'm sure Saturday Night Live was happy to have her along for the ride.

The Election Process - it does seem like we're making progress back towards transparency and credibility in the election process. We've still got a ways to go, but it's looking a lot better. I think the whole country should take after Minnesota personally - consistently the best voter turnout, the wait times were not bad (~ 20 minutes total for me), scantron ballots where you just have to fill in an oval, they get electronically counted but you have a paper backup. Oh, and pretty easy to pass out more pencils and put up a few more tables and chairs when it gets busy. Try doing that with electronic voting machines.

Ted Stevens (AK senator) and Michelle Bachman (MN rep) - The Stevens election completely baffles me. Yes Alaska is largely republican, but HOLY COW the guy was convicted of a FELONY a month ago! Even people who barely watch the news or read a paper couldn't have missed that. Yet he still gets elected. He is going to get ejected from the senate shortly because of his felony conviction anyway, but GEEZ, how ignorant can voters be? Michelle Bachman didn't get convicted of anything, but after the statements she made I'm amazed she won again. I guess a lot of our country DOES just vote a party line regardless.

CA Proposition 8 (ban on same-sex marriage) - I'm still amazed that this passed. I kinda figured it would pass in Florida and Arizona, but not in California. There's now a question as to whether the marriages that happened in California between June and November will be invalidated. If they are, I feel for those couples who are going to get their marriage taken away. Several of my wise friends have reminded me that equality is a long process that takes time, and is not won in an election booth or a legislature or in a court - it's won one person, one attitude at a time. It's won by being open about yourself, living your life as yourself, and living as a good example of a human being. I'm not going to worry about stuff I can't control like elections and courts. I know in my own life that I'm making a positive difference - that's all I can do, and I will continue to do it. I may not have the right to get married in my lifetime. It will happen in someone's lifetime though.

Franken/Coleman - I guess it's fitting that this election ended up almost dead even. Quite honestly I wasn't a huge fan of either one. Seems like so many elections anymore are choosing between two people you don't want. Last time that happened in Minnesota, I voted for Jesse Ventura for governor over the dem and repub candidates, and I think that's what a lot people did because he won. So for me this was a voting for the better of the bad. I will say I have never believed Norm Coleman deserved to be in office in the first place - he switched parties to attempt to get elected years ago (since he knew he couldn't run against Paul Wellstone on the dem side), lost the governor race to Jesse Ventura, and got elected almost by default after Paul Wellstone tragically died so close to the last election. I just wish there had been better choices on this ticket.

Local Offices - anyone else feel guilty voting for people they don't know? Fortunately most of them run unopposed, but it would suck to be a judge running against someone and more/less leave it up to random choice that you will win. I used to vote against all the incumbents, now I wonder if that is a good idea....I suppose in the grand scheme I shouldn't worry :)

OK...time to move on from the election...at least until the next campaign starts...oh wait that will be in like 2 weeks :)

Election Day

Like many of you I stayed up and watched a piece of history this evening. First and foremost, the historic level of participation - it was so wonderful to see a renewed enthusiasm in the democratic process after the past several elections. No matter who you were voting for I'm glad to see people got out and voted and participated. That in itself is a win.

I am happy that Barack Obama won. I listened to his speech, and have listened to a lot of his speeches and debates the past few months. If he's even half as good as he seems to be, I think our country has a lot to look forward to - there is so much to do and it's going to take all of us to get it done. I truly hope that unity for this country, and to the rest of the world, will be the #1 goal of the next 4 years.

I am a little sad and disappointed in the election. Four years ago, 16 states had "defense of marriage" amendments on their ballots - amendments targeting the banning the right of same-sex couples to get married - and they all won. It was about 4 years ago that I came out. In four years I have yet to have one bad experience, one lost friend, one negative thing happen to me because I am gay. And I have had many very positive things happen, including finding out that I am truly blessed with wonderul family and friends who love and support me unconditionally. For that I am forever thankful. I have participated in gay pride events, done presentations at work to many of the departments in my area on being gay and the importance of understanding the diversity in our country, and am going to be the GLBT representative on the IBM diversity council next year. I continue to direct and play handbells at church, work with the youth peer ministry group, and play in my bands. They all know I'm gay. Nothing bad has happened. So I guess maybe I have gotten to think that we really are getting past all the discrimination once and for all.

So, when I saw that there were three major "defense of marriage" amendment initatives in 3 states this election (Florida, Arizona - which defeated its amendment in 2006, and California, whose supreme court legalized same-sex marriage in June), and one amendment which I think is just absolutely hateful in Arkansas, which SPECIFICALLY bans same-sex couples from adopting children (not any unmarried couples, SPECIFICALLY same-sex couples), I was confident these things would fail. I knew we had to be past this. I was wrong. Florida and Arizona passed their amendments. Arkansas passed its amendment by a wide margin. California, the most liberal state in the country with the highest gay population in the country, is too close to call at this point. I feel like these are personal judgments on me. For over half the people in this country to go out of their way to say "you're a second class citizen because of who you want to marry, because of who you love", and to say "you are a worse parent than a child being an orphan". Those people voted yes on something that does not affect them one bit. Same-sex marriage isn't going to raise their taxes, cause the economy to fail, and is certainly not going to make their marriage worse or cause the destruction of society. And taking away good loving parents who would provide a good home to children who don't have one? Yes, that is a judgment on me.

I'm sure I will put this all in perspective tomorrow and in the coming days...for tonight though my faith in my country and humanity dropped a notch.

Election Jargon

I'm sure you're all sick of election stuff already...so what's one more? :)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_pl129

a little "fluffy" but a quick read.

VOTE

I'm sure all the bloggers in the country are reminding you all of this, but GO VOTE TODAY. In Minnesota the polls are open at 7am-8pm. For Minnesota voters the poll finder is:

http://pollfinder.sos.state.mn.us/

Google also has one for everybody:

http://maps.google.com/vote

This is going to be the largest voter turnout in history. Be a part of it.

Tune your Brain

http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/health/12-simple-ways-to-supercharge-your-brain-293892/

Usually these yahoo articles are fluff, but this one wasn't too bad.

All Saints Day

So many people don't know that Halloween (All Hallows Eve) is followed by All Saints Day, November 1st. So, besides being cool to have two "holidays" in a row, these particular ones have roots in many different religious and spiritual traditions. I'm not sure why I felt the need to point this out, other than I didn't have a better blog title and topic :)

Specifically for me, yesterday's Halloween was fun, if uneventful. Friends Paul, Anne, and son LP stopped over to chat and so I could see LP's costume - last year it was a cow, this year a puppy dog. Anne said next year he's Nemo :) Given the later daylight savings time this year, and the wonderful weather, kids didn't start showing up until about 6:00pm, but they sure came in droves after that - I was out of candy by 6:50! I stopped by Chipotle to see Erin - I guess it was one of the "dress up like a burrito and get a free burrito" days so they were actually really busy. Erin was dressed up as a vampire, a great costume.

I headed over to friends Shelley & Ryan's to hang out while they were handing out the rest of their candy - they were watching "The DaVinci Code", which I decided wasn't really as good of a movie as I remember - the book was so much better - and the book "Angels and Demons" was REALLY better - I hope they do a good job on the movie. By 9:00 I was really tired out and headed home and after playing with the kittens for awhile, went to bed. Erin didn't make it home until about 1:30am from work, and had to go in at 6:30 again this morning :(

Today has been a nice, relaxing morning. I'm deliberately avoiding the news and political stuff and trying to just enjoy the beautiful weather and the quiet morning here. The kittens are even being quiet and napping (oh wait they do that all the time). I'm also preparing the house for friends Trevor and Karli who are right now driving up and are going to stay over tonight - they are going to the "Rock The Vote" concert in the Cities this evening. I'm also getting motivated to get some house projects done - must be the nice weather! Also tonight is Nebraska vs. Oklahoma on ESPN, even though Oklahoma is probably a lot better than Nebraska this year, the Oklahoma game is always a big game because of the great tradition.

I know the election is still 4 days away, but I would encourage everyone to go vote. This is probably going to be one of the biggest, most attended elections in history, and I am so excited to see so many people involved in the process, regardless of which candidates you are supporting.

I've gotta quit reading the news...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20081030/pl_politico/15099

Stuff like this just amazes me - the McCain campaign saying Obama is getting a "free pass" on negative advertising because of his race. They're complaining about an ad linking his economic plan to President Bush's - which can truthfully be done. Yes it is "negative" advertising - any ad that points out a bad thing about an opponent is a negative ad. But compare that with the fliers I've gotten in the mail the past two weeks saying Obama is a terrorist and a Muslim. That is not just negative advertising, it's lies. It's sensationalism.

And if you're going to talk about free passes, how about Sarah Palin in the interviews I've seen of her and the debates. Every interview I've seen that has been unscripted asked fairly "easy" questions (at least relative to what the other candidates get asked) and she still seems to struggle to answer them. The debate? She never really even answered a question directly - all I could see is her winding her answer back to some scripted answer about something she knew. All politicans do that, but she was doing it a lot.

I can't wait for Tuesday.

50

Amazing how much nicer it feels outside when it's above that temp. Today is supposed to be a really nice day, the best of the week.

Had a really great salsa band practice on Tuesday - we finally have a new regular piano player, and he is doing a great job picking up all the songs (I keep trying to remind him that we've been playing these songs for 2 years and he's only had 2 weeks - when we started it took us 2 weeks to learn one song!) Last night, dinner with some friends at Green Mill - I do like the food there, but I don't think I've ever been there and not had slow or bad service. Our server wasn't bad last night, but everything was just really slow. I guess I should learn to relax and enjoy the evening and not worry about how fast stuff is :)

Listening/Reading/Watching

Watching too much CNN - is it Tuesday yet? The only reading I'm doing, unfortunately, is news sites too, so need to not do so much of that. For music, I am now on "P" in my playlist - I started in July on "A", determined to play every song in my collection while I'm working. It takes awhile.

I have to confess that I'm hooked on a new lawyer show called "Raising The Bar" on TNT. The two main characters are a now long-haired Mark-Paul Gosselaar (you may remember him as Zack on "Saved By The Bell") and Jane Kaczmarek (probably best known for being the mom on "Malcolm In The Middle"). Despite having to get past thinking of those two shows, this show is really compelling. Why do we watch lawer shows? Probably the same reason we watch any "drama" show that's not a soap opera - because we all secretly love soap operas, and shows in a specific genre are more socially acceptable :) My friend Chris always points out that "Star Trek Deep Space 9" is the soap opera of Trek, and he's right - and it is, and I love it! Monday's episode was one before the mid-season finale, and the closeted gay lawyer came out right at the end - very dramatic! I'll be on pins and needles waiting for the next one...

50th Ave Update

I haven't given a construction update lately because there hasn't been much - it just seems like they keep pushing dirt around. But it does finally look like they're getting ready to do the concrete now - at least that's my guess until they shove more dirt around again. Here's hoping...

Water Water

I have to post these two links, because reading the first one today brought back wonderful memories of a Dilbert from long ago...and this one is an on-running joke between Erin and myself...





and

Aeeeeee-y

No matter you're voting, this one is pretty funny:

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/cc65ed650d

Behlod, the power of...

So after a few days of trial and error (mostly error), Erin finally figured out that if you wrap the kitten's medicine in a small piece of cheese she'll gobble it up. Any other method we have tried she was too clever and picky to eat it (putting it on a treat, mixing it into wet food, etc.). Of course Mr. Fluffy Face will gobble up whatever you put in front of him, so we have to make sure she eats her medicine before he gets to it :)

I had a fun weekend - the Huskers were victorious against Baylor (and it was even a pretty entertaining game), Erin and I did some errands on Saturday afternoon (including spending my $40 of Kohl's cash), and headed over to some friends who were hosting a murder mystery-themed dinner party. Wow was that fun! Eight courses of food, and 8 rounds of clues and discussion related to trying to figure out who murdered the "victim". It must have been well-written (or we are all really bad investigators and should keep our day jobs) because the two "inspectors" didn't get it the first time, then we all voted, and NONE of us got it (4 different suspects were voted for and none were the killer), and then the inspectors got another shot after eliminating 5 people, and still didn't get it. I did find it amusing that all of the women suspects were picked first (4 out of the first 5). A fun time.

On Sunday I headed out to Ironwood Springs ranch in the morning to catch the second half of the Peer Ministry retreat. I've been a Peer Ministry trainer for 6 or 7 years now, ever since our fantastic youth directory Lisa started working at church. I think it's a neat program - for one thing, it gives 10-12th graders something to continue doing after confirmation, and the skills you learn and things you talk about aren't just religion or church related, but are really life skills and topics. This is the biggest group I can remember (18). When I drove out at 7:30am, it was 50, sunny, and breezy. When we were leaving at 3pm, it was 30, snowing, and the wind was so hard it was hard to drive.

Only one more week of election crap, and I'm about ready to be done - I have received about 20 fliers in the past week (from both sides), as well as two robo-calls (which I promptly delete from voicemail). Both sides are using some pretty underhanded tactics, I think the two worst ones I've gotten are the one portraying Barack Obama as a terrorist (pretty directly) and the one trying to scare me into making sure I vote republican because only the republicans will appoint judges who will "vote" against abortion (last time I checked, judges aren't supposed to be political, they aren't VOTING). Funny, every time the judges rule in favor of things the "left" supports, they are called "activist"...but apparently it's ok to be "activist" if it's ruling pro-life. I am not saying I am pro-life or pro-choice, or anything at all, I am just saying when it comes to judges you can't have it both ways - you can't call them activist when they rule "against" you but not when they rule "for" you. Why don't we choose good, qualified judges and let them do the job they are supposed be doing, which is interpreting the law fairly, based on the circumstances, without political, religious, or other biases?

Word To Your Mother

I was especially excited about the trivia question at Caribou this morning - sometimes I don't answer the question because they're so easy and I don't feel like I've earned 10 cents off (stupid, I know). But I bet I was one of very few people who ACTUALLY definitively knew the answer this morning (it was multiple choice so I'm sure some people guessed correctly). The question was:

"What was the first rap song to hit #1?"
a) Baby Got Back
b) U Can't Touch This
c) Ice Ice Baby

Before I reveal the answer, I have to explain the two reasons why I knew this one. The first is because I find the answer extremely ironic and thus memorable. But the second reason is that I went through a 4-year period of being completely obsessed with music charts growing up - to the point where I was making databases on my Apple IIGS of them (now you will all KNOW I am an OCD geek - my friends were playing video games on the computer, I was making databases and spreadsheets - I really was destined to work at IBM). So I know this because I was "there" :)

The answer is "Ice Ice Baby". I find this ironic because every major rap artist or group prior to Vanilla Ice was black and had way more talent than Vanilla Ice did (I use "talent" loosely referring to rap music). "Ice Ice Baby", while still a cultural icon to anyone growing up in the late 80s/early 90s, really isn't much of a song - the words are pretty stupid when you listen to them, and he ripped off most of the bass and rhythm tracks from "Under Pressure" which he totally used without permission (claiming he added one note which made it ok).

Yes I do know all the words, and sing them with my friend Ericka whenever we get together. Add that to geeky OCD.

And the only really important part of this whole story is that I have my 20 oz cup of Caribou Coffee and am ready to tackle the day.

A thought for the morning

http://flickr.com/photos/criana/2390656195/

Let's hope the next president has a chance to do this.

coffee maker angst

I may have blogged about this before, but I've been in a continuous coffee maker saga for the past year or so (mostly of my own doing). Over several years I've bit on two "free" coffee maker offers from Gevalia - strictly speaking you don't have to buy anything beyond the initial coffee purchase, but it was so hard to cancel I let it go for quite awhile, so I've probably paid back "free" in triplicate. But in all fairness, both coffee makers were actually pretty good for "free" (one was the full pot maker, one was a dual-single cup maker). However, anything "free" wears out eventually, and the pot one started dying sometime in January.

So I decided this time around that I wanted a really good coffee maker, that did everything automatically (grinding, etc.) so I'd use it more. Well it turns out to get a quality one that really does that, you have to spend like $400+ (every review of the "grind-and-brew" ones that are in the $50-150 range were bad on the grinder and cleaning). So I dialed that down and decided I could continue grinding beans myself, and read reviews and bought what I thought was the best brewing machine - a Cuisinart model, in June. Since then, I have tried every combination of things I can think of to get the coffee to come out not so "watery" - using the permanent gold filter, white filters, brown filters, double filters, gold + paper filter, filtered water, unfiltered water, built-in water filter, not built-in water filter, different coffee, etc. etc. and it all still just tastes a bit watery. I should have returned it immediately, and now it's probably too late.

Meanwhile most people tell me that the cheap Mr. Coffee or brands like that from Target are just as good, and that really it's just the coffee you use. So my friend Ryan brought in an old 4-cup maker he had used before he moved out of an office and into a cube, and let me take it home and try it. Well, the coffee tastes pretty good - I didn't do anything special (it uses just plain standard filters), and even buying a new one just like this is probably $20 or less.

So now I have to decide what to do with the $80 Cuisinart that I'll probably never use again, and whether I should make my own coffee every day or just go to Caribou like I have been and pay the $2 for a cup in the morning (which I have to admit is kind of a "fun" part of the morning - those Caribou marketing people really know how to make the atmosphere in there nice).

Do I spend too much time thinking about this? Probably...

Political flyers

Really, I'm just ready for the election to be over...but I do find it interesting receiving the flurry of political fliers, door knockers, etc. that are now in full force. I missed one last night (Erin was here), that was "re-polling" me - I guess to make sure I'm still voting the way I'm voting? I've also had a representative for state rep Jim Jensen stop by, and Jim Bier himself (running for county commissioner) came to my door personally. Strangely no republicans have stopped by...maybe they know?

The fliers today were particularly interesting, because one was for Norm Coleman, and the other was for...well Norm Coleman, but at first glance it looked like it was for Al Franken. But really it was telling me how bad a person Al Franken is. I was watching CNN, and they were showing there are now only 7 battleground states. and 7% of independent or undecided voters. So basically they're saying the election is going to be decided by 7% of voters in 7 states. When will we ever get rid of this ancient electoral system.

OK enough ranting about the election. I don't think 50th Ave is going to be done before winter, so we're going to have a closed road all winter, which actually is probably ok given the condition it gets to in the winter anyway. I have officially been named a "team lead" at work now, which doesn't change my job one bit, doesn't give me a promotion or more pay, and I'm sure I've been a "team lead" on other projects, but oddly enough until today I've never actually seen it on a chart. Kinda neat. Sunday was my first Sunday as handbell director for the adult choir, and it went great - I think this group is going to be a lot of fun. We played through about 5 new songs last night and we're planning on doing 4 great Christmas songs for the St. Mary's service. While I miss playing, I do admit I like being in charge :)

Off to bed and on to Wednesday!

Barack Rolling

This is just classic...and whoever did it has way too much time on their hands :)



Home from New York! Time to do some laundry and catch up with everything...

From NE to NY

I'm a little behind on my blogging, but I have good reason - I was home a total of 18 hours in the last 6 days.

The whirlwind started last Thursday night, where some of my band went downtown again to play for the Art Walk - I had thought last time was the last one, but apparently there was one more. A bit chillier, and not as many people walking by, but still fun.

But the traveling started Friday, when, at noon, I hopped in the car and headed southwest for Nebraska. It was a beautiful day for driving, and gas was $2.96 in Iowa, so all was good :) I purposely stopped a few times just to get out and enjoy the day and the fresh air. I arrived at my friend Paul's at about 6:30pm, and pretty soon the old gang was over at Paul's to play video games, watch movies, play cards, etc. Seeing my old friends is always a good time - after so much time together in our lives, when we get together it's just like old times.

Saturday I headed down to Lincoln to meet up with good friend and fellow Husker fan Will, to watch some football and head to a late 8:00pm game. By far the latest game I've ever been to - I think I went to one 6:30pm game once. Fortunately the weather was fantastic and we got there at 6:30. Unfortunately the Huskers have a ways to go - losing 17-52 to Missouri. Most of us in the crowd didn't really know how to handle this kind of game, as it never happens. But I have faith that they'll get better - and Missouri is pretty good this year. Many many thanks to Will for providing me with such awesome tickets every year - Will you da man!

Sunday was great because I got to sleep in a bit, have a nice breakfast with Will & Amanda, and then drive back to Omaha (via Dodge Street because I can never resist seeing how far out things are built now) to visit Grandma Bye. Grandma and I had a wonderful afternoon, complete with a trip to the grocery store. Many of you may not know that my grandma is actually my step-grandma (although all of that happened long before I was born). So strictly speaking we are not blood-related, yet I always feel like I turned out just like her - we are both the busiest people I know, getting together usually involves blocking off time on our calendars, and we think a lot alike.

I had decided not to drive back until Monday morning, so I had the chance to hang out with good friends Trevor & Karli for dinner (Spaghetti Works!), Rock Band, and Karli buying me coffee in the morning before I left.

I got going right at 7am, and got home at 12:30 - another nice day for driving (and $2.96 gas). A load of laundary, repacking, handbell practice, a few hours to hang out with Erin and the kittens, and I'm at the airport at 6:15am checking in and heading to New York for work. I had the chance to go to New York in March for a conference for the new project I'm on, and was happy to get the opportunity again. A bit rainy as we left Rochester, but flights were all on time, and it was nice weather landing in Westchester. I was out of the airport in about 5 minutes, picked up my rental Ford Mustang from Hertz, and made my way to IBM Yorktown to catch the second half of day one. Some very interesting presentations, and good to get to see the New York half of the project. Tuesday night everyone ate at a great little place called "HorseFeathers" in Tarrytown. Afterwards I caught most of the presidential debate (I've decided those things are worthless - everyone finds what they want to hear anyway and 2 minutes isn't enough to thoroughly answer a question).

Wednesday was day two of the presentations, and they were certainly very good. Toward the end of the day they provided refreshments for everyone, including the biggest strawberry shortcake I've ever seen (I bet even with all the people only 1/3 of it was actually eaten). I decided to drive around and explore since I had an all-paid-for car with unlimited miles, and saw some of neat parts of Westchester county - everything feels like it's in a nook or cranny, and there's something else around every curve in the road. I know it's really just because there are so many trees that you can't see anything, but it's still neat. I explored Mount Kisco (where I'm staying) and found a New York style pizza place and ordered some really good pizza.

Tomorrow is day three, and I'm spending the day at the Hawthorne site to meet with some more of the people I don't normally get to see in person. I had hoped to fly out Thursday night, but with how limited flights are getting these days, and because of the short lead time, there was nothing out of Westchester Thursday after 11:15am, so I am going to fly out early Friday morning. I will be looking forward to being home, sleeping in my own bed, and hanging out with Erin and the kittens!

And the winner is...

Even the non-geeks will appreciate this one (thanks Slashdot)

http://technologizer.com/2008/09/18/errormessage/

The "Sad Mac" is pretty cute!

Friday

OK so I'll take a break from political and economic blogging :)

Last night I had the chance to visit my dear friend from high school Denise, who has now twice had to come to Minneapolis for work. This time we went to the "News Room" restaurant, a favorite of mine (ok so I've only been there twice but it's been good both times!) Somehow we manage to talk for hours just like there hasn't been the 16-year gap since high school...on the way home I couldn't resist going around the "long way" up Hennepin and back over the new 35W bridge so I could see it. OK, so it's still just a bridge, but it's all new and wide and shiny and pretty. Amazing that they were able to accomplish that in such a short amount of time (and I applaud how well the city handled the traffic re-routing issues). Let's hope that this tragedy prevents future ones from occurring.

Nebraska is playing Virginia Tech on Saturday night prime time, looking forward to that!

Also, we've finally decided on a name for our girl kitty. Before I announce the names, I will say that neither of us came up with either of these names (we did approve them though so I suppose we're responsible) - the boy name was derived from my niece Keagann, and the girl name was from one of Erin's friends.

boy = Mr. Fluffy Face (Fluffy)
girl = Madame Sparkles Fairy Princess (Sparkles)

More pictures to follow...Mr. Fluffy Face apparently has ring worm or something similar, so he is now getting medicine. Both have adapted well to their new home and are now proceeding to destroy the furniture :) We are trying to use kitty treats to positively reinforce good behavior, but Madame Sparkles doesn't seem to care for them much (but they both try to eat "people" food whenever it's around!)

Voting Machines

I have probably blogged about this one in the past...but I heard yet another podcast about voting machines and the horrors of what's going on with them. We've had 8 years since the 2000 election debacle to fix these problems...and we're just making them worse.

I am generally always in favor of technology and especially computers making our lives better, easier, automating things, etc. And I'm a techie and a geek and love gadgets, etc. So you know I'm not one of those technophobes that doesn't want to change or upgrade anything. But I'm totally AGAINST continuing to try to integrate complex technology into the voting process.

Why you ask? Wouldn't computerizing this process make it easier, faster, more efficient? The answer is a definite NO. I think like an engineer, and my engineering mind tells me to look at the problem and find the appropriate solution.

First, and most fundamental - what problem are we really trying to solve here? We have elections once or twice a year at most (not counting the occasional extras for a local runoff or issue). So from a purely financial perspective, investing a lot of money in a bunch of technology that will at most be used twice a year is a huge waste of public funds. That aside, the voting process happens all on one day - the most important part of the process is to make sure everyone has the opportunity to vote. The second most important part of the process is that the votes are counted accurately. The third most important part of the process is that it is transparent - so that we know it's a fair process. The most important part is NOT that we count the votes the fastest or most efficiently (contrary to what the media probably thinks). We do not need the results of an election instantly. Waiting a day (or, heaven forbid even two days) is not a big deal - the people elected don't even take office until a month or two after the election!

To address the first priority - it is MUCH simpler to put out extra chairs, tables, pencils/pens, and ballots if a polling place gets busy, than it is to come up with more voting machines. This ensures everyone gets to vote, and doesn't have to wait hours to do it. Paper ballots - even if they are counted electronically with something like a scan-tron machine or similar, can be counted LATER - so even if the power goes out, you can have candles, battery powered lights, etc. and still vote. Good luck with your touch screen computers if the power is gone.

To address the second priority - any counting process probably has flaws. But with paper ballots there is ALWAYS a backup. They can always be re-counted by hand if necessary. I am a software engineer, and no matter how good you design your software, there is always a chance it can fail and lose data. The cost of high-end hardware that protects against data loss is very high - and even then it's not guaranteed. And the machines being used right now are not even close to that level.

To address the third priority - every voting machine in use today uses proprietary software that only the company who designed the system can see the source for, and knows how it actually works. I don't know how you get any more transparent than paper ballots that are public record and that can be recounted.

Bottom line - we are not solving any practical voting problem with voting machines. It is a major cost to taxpayers, it is not necessary, and it actually hurts the process. WHY WHY WHY are we doing this? It's going to happen again this election...I'm so glad Minnesota has resisted and stuck with paper and scan-tron machines.

Cheap morning

In addition to a $1.00 off coupon at Caribou (thanks Wayne!) I also knew that Donald Duck's nephews were Huey, Dewey, and Lewie, so my coffee was $.86! Given the supposed economic doom our country is in, every little bit helps :)

Seriously, there are so many sides to this problem that the country is in with the banking industry, and I have many mixed feelings (and it seems like even party lines are breaking down on this one). I guess it comes down to that you can't have it both ways - if you want less government, less regulation, etc. you can't have the government bailing everyone out when this kind of thing happens. If you want the government to bail out people when this happens, you have to accept more government regulation. I don't know why that's such a hard concept to get.

Even though I'm probably mostly on the liberal/democrat side of things most of the time, economically I've always leaned toward a more fiscally conservative, less regulated economy, because I always felt that too much regulation artifically drove the economy and eventually that catches up to you - especially as we are moving towards a world economy now. But history really does demonstrate this doesn't work very well. The factor I always forget to put into the equation is greed. That factor is coming through very clearly in this current mess. To the CEOs of these large companies, what incentive do they have to plan for the future if they're getting huge salaries, stock options, etc. - for them, it's easy to get caught up in the short term, how much can we make now, no matter the future cost. And if the company crashes, oh well they've already gotten their big payday out of it, so who cares.

And, it is of course not good for half the country to have their mortgages foreclosed on. Part of me thinks it is the fault of the people who took out loans they couldn't afford in the first place, and that they should have to take the consequences (and they should to some degree). BUT...many of these people are first-time home buyers, who probably don't exactly know everything about loans and how much they can afford, etc. and are putting some amount of trust in the bank giving them a loan. Plus, from personal experience, I know that buying your first home is as emotional a process as it is a business process - you're excited, nervous, etc. and you may not always think completely clearly about the business side of things. I was fairly sure I could afford the first house I bought, and I was conservative on how big a loan I took out (they would have given me a lot more) but there were a lot of hidden expenses and things I didn't think about with home ownership that I know now, and I can see some new home owners not thinking about these things.

30 years ago banks would never have given out these kinds of loans because the each individual bank was in business to make money - and they would not take the risk of a bad investment (someone who wouldn't or couldn't make their payments). But things have changed - banks have merged to become super-banks, and these loan investments have moved beyond just the bank, to Wall Street investors - so they've become more like stocks. Which means the old built-in safety mechanism (banks not giving out risky loans) is gone.

I honestly don't know if there's a good long-term solution. I do know that the present system we have obviously isn't working. I can't see how we can do this bail-out thing and not add regulation at least for awhile.

No on Prop 8 ad

I generally don't like political advertising, especially when we now see one every 5 minutes on TV...but this one was refreshing



Of course I'm probably biased, but I would like to think if I had children of my own, I would do everything I could for them, like my parents have done for me. It makes me feel good to see other parents out there that would do an ad like this one.

Kitty Heaven

I will blog more (lots more probably!) later, but I wanted to officially announce the two new members of our family and get the pictures up.

http://picasaweb.google.com/pcbye1/20080914

Sunday morning we grabbed coffee at Caribou, and headed over to friends Jay & Eric's to pick up a really nice litterbox that they gave us a good deal on (thanks guys!) Then we headed to PetSmart on the south side of Rochester, where they were doing cat adoption days through the Safe Haven Pet Rescue organization. We were greeted by several nice volunteers and started looking at all the cats. Erin immediately zoned in on one, and took it out and held it for awhile. I could tell they really got along. We decided we should go through the whole set though to see what else they had. The lady assured us she wouldn't let this one go without letting us know. We looked at some more, took a few more out, then wandered back towards the first one we looked at. There was another one in the next cage over that looked nice too ("nice" meaning kind of calmer looking). We took him out and I held him - he immediately got along with me really well. We were having a hard time deciding (we had intended to get just one) and the lady told us to take them both out and compare - cleverly making sure we'd fall in love with both so we'd take two :) As it turned out though, she knew what she was doing because this was really the right choice. I never really thought about how nice it probably is for pets to have buddies to hang out with - but after seeing them together I can certainly see how much fun they have! I know cats do fine by themselves too, and I'm sure it would have been fine for us, but having two is not any more work than having one.

We drove home (they were mewing the whole way home, not liking being in the boxes) and set them free, and boy did the have fun exploring the house - I imagine they haven't had this kind of space and things to explore for awhile. Right away they were a little timid but it didn't take long for them to warm right up to us. They also figured out the litter box right away (hooray!) and are eating and drinking just fine too. Mr. Fluffy Face (the boy) seems to be the more curious/stubborn one as it takes him a few "no's" and gentle swats to figure out not to get on the tables and furniture, while Madame no-name (we're still working on the name - were only planning on one!) seems to get it pretty qiuckly. She's a little shy at first with people but is not shy about letting Mr. Fluffy Face know whow's boss :)

The gang came over for dinner last night, and we had fun playing with the "mow-mow's" (as LP calls them). So far they don't sleep in our room, but can basically sleep anywhere else - including a big box we put blankets in and converted to a kitty bed. They are also loving all the cat toys people have already given us (it's great to have a lot of cat friends already)

More cat news to come...today was the first day in my new office, and I'm all moved in now. The first handbell rehearsals are tonight, looking forward to that. Iowa State lost to Iowa this weekend :( but Nebraska won again and is 3-0 :) and I'm excited to see them in person on October 4th against Missouri.