Crazy 4 Luv

Okay, I'll be the first to admit that I'm sometimes a bit impetuous. I chalk this up to my alter-ego, "Smoky." Smoky is the kind of guy who, after a couple of beers says, "Hey! You know what would be a good idea? Let's fly to Vegas! Better yet, let's buy tickets for some friends and we'll all go fly stand-by! It won't seem to take very long if we never sober up!"

Occasionally, however, Smoky has a good idea. Take, for example, the fact that I flew this last weekend to Heidelberg to visit my wife. Total time away from home: 72 hours. Total time in transit: 28 hours. Total time spent with Argotnaut: priceless.

Granted, I didn't just go fly stand-by. I was able to get an extraordinary deal from studentuniverse.com, which made the trip fiscally possible. Then I had to take Buddy to the Howliday Inn Doggie Day Care center here in Portland (which is really wonderful and with which Buddy is already familiar) so the little dog had a good place to crash for three days. And then I negotiated with a neighbor, Greg, to look in on the kitties while I was away. Actually, no negotiation was necessary, as he was happy to do it -- plus he was rewarded with a big bottle of pilsner beer, some cognac-filled chocolates direct from Deutschland and, of course, the company of our very entertaining pussycats.

I didn't mention the trip in this space before now because I didn't want to advertise on the web when I'd be away from home. Call me paranoid. Go ahead. Everybody does.

So for those of you who bugged me for an update, well, first things first -- I was pretty busy getting everything in order for the trip. I won't provide particulars of the visit itself because this is a family site and if I went into detail then I'd have to charge folks to view its content. HOWEVER. I can say that Argotnaut and I enjoyed a lovely romantic weekend, including dinner at a wonderful Italian restaurant across a cobblestone street from a church that looks like this:

One would think I'd be pretty exhausted by the time I dragged my sorry ass on the plane for the trip home. One would be correct. But I was feeling better than the young man sitting in the row in front of me. He was illin' and covered himself with a Lufthansa blanket as if sealing himself in a body bag. He looked like this:

Buddy, of course, was gratifyingly happy to see his daddy and ran around the perimeter of Howliday Inn's office area for five minutes after I got there, tossing his stuffed hedgehog toy in the air the whole time. After he got home, he looked like this:

However, the cats remained in an enviable state of grace, serene upon their pedestals like Egyptian monuments guarding the tombs of kings...or in this case, guarding the counter by the stove where I open their cat food cans.

Without a doubt, the trip was worth the trouble. But I'll tell you one thing. I'm never spending this much time away from my wife again. As a matter of fact, I think I'll visit studentuniverse.com again right now...

Deutschland Dregs

Okay, whilst downing a few delicious Northwest-brewed beers, I finally managed to catch up on my Heidelberg photos and provide not-so-witty accompanying commentary.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Jig!

No matter how much you enjoy the place you've been, you're always glad to be home. Many thanks to my brother, Steve, who looked after the house and the "boys," otherwise known as Buddy, Cookie and Buster. As a gift to Steve, I brought home two bottles of genuine Heidelberger pils beer, two matching glasses and two coasters (the latter I swiped from "zum Wisse Schwan"...see below). When I got home, Steve and I drank a toast to my arrival and his survival. He looks happy, don't he?

Although now the TRUTH can be told. The gift pack I got Steve contained two glasses. One was engraved with "Heidelberger" (the term for a male native of Heidelberg) and one was engraved with "Heidelbergerin," (the term for a FEMALE native of Heidelberg). Obviously, the pack was designed to be shared by a man and a woman, but I didn't mind drinking out of the "Heidelbergerin" glass. I'm secure in my masculinity, and besides, I'm drinking BEER. GREAT beer, goddammit!
And speaking of the "boys," here they are enjoying a playful (more or less) tussle shortly after I returned:

It's good to be home, and yet I can't be happy being apart from my lovely, wonderful, beautiful wife. Here she is preparing to enjoy some Thai food outdoors on the cobblestone streets of the Alt Stadt on my last full day in Heidelberg:

I will see you soon, my love!

Things I like about Deutschland

I had a feeling before I visited Deutschland that I would like the way they do things. That turned out to be mostly true. First of all, EVERYONE rides bikes. Kids, students, grandmas, blue-collar types, executives, you name it. In fact, this can make for quite a jumble in the "parking lot."

I also very much like the bars/restaurants. Very close to Lisa's apartment is a place called the "Wisse Schwan," or White Swan. (Lisa may have to provide the exact name.) I struck up a very formal relationship with a waitress there (I should have taken a picture of her, you can only see her back in the photo below). She was the only person who asked me why I walked with a limp. I tried to explain to her in broken German why that was, and she expressed her sympathy in broken English. Well, not broken English, really. It was WAY better than my German. Anyway, the folks at the WS are friendly and they have a real live Stammtisch (Regular's Table) where patrons are allowed to bring their doggies. How civilized!

In the above photo, you can see a regular member of the Stammtisch in the lower left. Here's a better picture of Chika:

And finally, in a previous post, I took the Germans to task for their love of cigarettes, a habit I find all things "not German": stupid, illogical, sociopathic and reckless. But that's not for lack of warnings. Check this out!

Obviously, printing "smoking kills" and "smoking causes fatal lung cancer" right on the box in huge letters is quite a bit more progressive than the wimpy warnings we have in the States. (I'm sure my friend Lyle, who designs packaging for a living, blanches at the prospect of such labeling becoming typical in America.)
I hope that someday Americans can easily bike to their favorite pub and take their favorite doggie in with them, even if they have a cancer stick dangling from their lips!

Last H-berg days

On my last couple of days in Heidelberg, Lisa was busy doing frivolous things, like attending classes. The nerve! So it was up to me to entertain myself in H-berg, one of the most beautiful cities in Germany. What to do, what to do? Although I enjoy an urban environment, even I was getting a little edgy with the constant flow of people and the lack of green space in the Alt Stadt. So I decided to drag myself, artificial hip and all, up to the Philosophenweg, or Philosopher's Way, a lane that overlooks H-berg from high above the north side of the Neckar river. Word has it that Goethe and other reprobates availed themselves of the Philosophenweg to talk nice to (and subsequently have relations with) young ladies. I can see why. It's a good heart-pumping walk, but not too far -- Mr. Gimpyhip made it easily -- and the views of the city are quite breathtaking.

It's a good 12% incline or so up the cobblestone lane to the PWeg,

There are a few little outlooks with benches so one may rest and take pictures of H-berg across the Neckar. None of the photos I took with Sammy really did it justice, so if you want the full experience, you'll have to go do it yourself. And you should. At the top, where one reaches the "Pweg," I saw a little sign which said, I think, "Path to river may be closed in winter." No shit...it's a pretty slick slope as it is, and a bit of snow would make it an elbow-scrapin' trip down...

After scaling the heights of the "Pweg," one may return to H-berg across the Alten Brucke, "Old Bridge."

On the Heidelberg side of the Neckar, one finds a sculpture of...well, it is supposed to be a monkey, and it is, but I'm sure many drunk Heidelbergers have seen this Baboon from Hell in their nightmares:

Next to the the Monkey is a plaque. It is in Old German but Lisa translated it as best she could as: "What are you looking at? Haven't you seen enough in Heidelberg? If not, touch my plate and you will return." Or something to that effect.

Of course, I touched the plate, because I want more than anything to get back to my lovely, sexy, wonderful wife!

Heidelberg catch-up

I was unable to upload these two posts from Heidelberg, so here they are now!

Fruehling Im Heidelberg

Fruehling Im Heidelberg

Lisa has been lucky enough to land a really nice little student apartment in Heidelberg in the heart of the Alt Stadt (old city). The room itself has a tiny galley kitchen with a minifridge and a couple of hot plates on a range-top sufficient to heat saucepans and skillets, a private bathroom with kickass shower, and a nook featuring a writing desk from which she can view the building's courtyard and the hills beyond.




She was very lucky to get this room, as she was told to expect a regular (though private) dorm room where she would have to share a kitchen and bathroom facilities. In such an arrangement, the students are expected to share the cleaning duties, a hit-and-miss arrangement at best. I can tell you that if my floormates in the dorm I attended (in the Mesozoic Era) were required to clean the bathrooms and a kitchen, the health inspector would have received an emergency call within a month.

Lisa's apartment is just off the Hauptstrasse, a cobblestone, car-free street appoximately half a mile long that's lined with shops and boutiques (including the mighty Star Coffee, wherein we access the Internet.)


But just in case you think it's all fun and games for our girl, here's a photo of what she's been doing most: filling out forms.

Excuse me, I ordered a Zima...

Excuse me, I ordered a Zima...

...not emphysema.
The Germans, by and large, seem to be a pretty hearty and heath-conscious lot. They walk (with great purpose!) everywhere and true to the stereotype seem quite industrious. But their youth, much like their American counterparts, suffer one fatal exception: a love of smoking. And unlike in America, Germans are unenlightened (pun intended) about banning smoking in public places. Case in point, Star Coffee, where Lisa and I like to go to access the Internet and also enjoy super-delicious milschcoffee and chocolate muffins. When the students invade, suddenly the place becomes fogbound in a cancerous haze that makes our eyes water and burn and our clothes smell like an astray (not to mention what it does to our lungs). But who cares about cancer, emphysema, heart disease and poisoning the airspace of innocent and defenseless fellow patrons when one has a chance to look cool in front of one's mates?



There are not many instances when I can say it, but in this case, "Viva America, you hackin' Hessians!"

Heidelberg Schloss

Heidelberg Schloss

On Sunday, Lisa and I visited the schloss (castle) overlooking Heidelberg. Granted, every tourist who passes within 50 kilometers of "H-berg" does the same thing, but the schloss is like Niagra Falls...once you see it from a distance, you have to see it up close. And it's tough to miss, as it sits overlooking the Neckar river and dominates the hills southeast of the city.

For example, from the main plaza of H-berg's Alt Stadt (old city), the schloss squats overlooking the town in a wooded area that in America would undoubtedly be occupied by McMansions or luxury condos. The photos below were taken with the camera on my handheld (Sammy), which is best described not in terms of mega-pixels but rather "scheisse-pixels." However, one can still sense the darned majestic essence of the thing -- the schloss, I mean.

It's strange to think that people who live here just seem not to notice it...


We were fortunate to have a bit of sun on the day we went, and it's still so early in the tourist season that it wasn't too crowded. It's pretty easy to walk up to the schloss from the Alt Stadt, in which Lisa's student apartment is located. Even old Mr. Gimpyhip made it without too much difficulty. One enjoys lovely views of H-berg on the way up...

Then, suddenly, "look Ethyl, it's a durned castle!"

As Lisa pointed out, the schloss and the views from it just can't be captured on flm in a way that accurately conveys the experience, no matter how talented the photographer or how fancy the equipment. Perhaps one day when 3D becomes common, one will gain some conception second-hand. But for now, the only way is to join the tourists.

Below: The ruined southeast tower, and two views of H-berg.



Lisa's apartment is just to the left of the bridge.
After wandering around for a bit, Lisa and I had a lovely lunch of spinach crepes at a nice romantic restaurant near the schloss. It was great to have day of luxury, because next day, Lisa began her classes.

The High Life at the Hotel Auerstein

One of the things Lisa I did right on this trip was to get a hotel room at Hotel Auerstein the on our first day in Deutschland, rather than just head straight to the school and go through the room registration process right off the plane. It was great to simply crash for a couple of hours, then take shower to wash the "travel crud" off and head down to the hotel restaurant for a wonderful meal.

It was also really nice to get up the next morning -- well, we were up at 4am local and puttered around for a while -- and have a nice breakfast buffet waiting for us. I plan to do a post at the end of the trip summarizing my impressions of Deutschland, but I'll let one slip now: these folks really like their swine flesh. But luckily for Lisa, they also like their Nutella!


The hotel had internet access, but it was spotty from our room. Fortunately, we had done some research for free wi-fi spots before we left and found one at "Star Coffee." As luck would have it, one of Star Coffee's locations is just around the corner from Lisa's residence building. How fortunate. It's a very pleasant spot as you can see, despite the often incongruous music selection ranging from Cat Stevens to the Doobie Brothers!

Guten Tag From Deutschland!

Guten Tag From Deutschland!

Lisa and I arrived safely on Wednesday about 11:30 am German time. As I said to Lisa, "That was the best flight possible for a ten-hour haul in Economy Class." Luftansa's food was quite good, the booze was free and the attendants friendly and competent. That's about all you can ask, I reckon. After about five hours, it was impossible to get comfortable, but that was expected.

Customs was a bit anticlimactic -- the unsmiling and efficient gentleman glanced at my passport photo and then slammed a rather plain-looking stamp on it. But at least I got the satisfaction of an old-fashioned hand stamp -- I was afraid he'd just put my passport in a machine and it would "ka-chunk" like a timecard. Lisa and I then just sauntered through the "nothing to declare" gate.

After getting our baggage, Lisa and I wandered aimlessly for a while -- well, not aimlessly, but rather frazzledly -- looking for the Luftansa bus to Heidelberg. With the help of Lisa's Deutsche-sprechen skills and the nice lady at the Luftansa lost baggage counter, we were eventually sucessful.

This is for my brother, Steve: On the Autobahn, I saw a Ferrari Testarossa and innumerable Porsche 911 Cararras. They blew past the pokey old Luftansa bus -- the Ferrari sounding disturbingly like a lawnmower -- but we were happy to be comfy and firmly on our way to Heidelberg.

Once in town, we staggered around again in an effort to find the streetcar that went past our hotel. A lovely young woman gave Lisa some helpful instructions after I helped her haul her baby-laden pram up a flight of steps outside some government building (so much for Germans being unhelpful and untrusting). After a few more small misadventures (figuring out which tickets to buy for the streetcar and panicking for a moment on it because we thought we might be going the wrong way) we reached our hotel about when we estimated we would -- roughly 3pm local and after we'd been up 24 hours straight. Happily, our room looked just like the one on the Hotel Auerstein's web site. I don't think Lisa and I have ever been so happy to be anywhere in our lives.

Blogging from Pocket PC: The Geekery Continues

Blogging from Pocket PC: The Geekery Continues

I have been experimenting with ways to update my blog using my Pocket PC in anticipation of my upcoming trip to Deutschland. You'd think this would be a relatively simple matter, but it hasn't been. However, I think I may now have the problem licked.

I want to include both photos and copy. However, the e-mail blogging application offered by Blogger doesn't support attachments, which takes it out of the running as far as including photos. I could use "Flickr," an on-line photo sharing site that allows users to post photos on their blogs, but they can only include copy as captions to their pictures. That wasn't flexible enough for me.

So I first needed a Pocket PC application that allowed me to post to Blogger. However, since I use a smartphone (phone+pocket pc) not all such blogging programs will work. However, I finally located Blogs In Hand, a nifty program that seems to work well once I figured out that to access the Blogger server you have to use this crazy URL: http://plant.blogger.com/api/RPC2.

Then I needed an ftp program that would run on my PPC that would allow me to upload photos to the frinkenstein server; I could then reference the URL of the photo so it would appear on by blog. After downloading trial versions of several applications, I settled on Pocket FTP. Now I should be able to post and include photos like the following: my set-up, with Buster helpfully giving it some scale:

Here's the packed rig. Pretty cool!
Okay, that should be the last "nuts and bolts" post for a while!

Deutsch tune

Last week was the final week of regular classes for my Deutsch class. We were encouraged to do any kind of project for extra points (or "pluspunkte") if we desired. So how could I pass up an opportunity to do a song auf Deutsch?! The result was "Ich habe keine angst," or "I have no fear." I have posted it below in mp3 format...just click on the image below, which was the cover I put together for the CD.

Be aware that the mp3 is about 2 megs, so it could take a few minutes if you don't have broadband. Argotnaut has Quicktime installed as her default mp3 player, and it apparently will stream mp3s. Who knew? Not me. Leave it to Apple-designed applications, which seem to work with a minimum of fuss. "But where's the challenge?" I say! Those of you who prefer a streaming experience -- and who doesn't? -- can copy and paste this URL into your RealMedia Player, and it should stream: http://frinkenstein.com/Ich_habe_keine_angst.rm
I tried to do a link to the RealMedia file but it wouldn't work for some reason.

Anyway, the tune turned out okay, considering I'm no audio engineer and it was essentially a "one-off" thing. On Wednesday, the class is having its "final," which is a mandatory pot luck where we will all get together for snacks and receive our grades. The instructor plans to play the tune then. I'm curious about the reaction of my classmates..."Uh, yeah...um...that was really...um...interesting."

The good thing is that this exercise got me off my lazy ass a bit to start composing and recording again. That's good news for ME; I don't know if it's good news for any afflicted audience! (P.S. -- Argotnaut helps out with backing vocals.)


Here are the lyrics:

Ich habe keine Angst
Ich verstehe, ich kenne deinen Name.
Ich kenne dein Gesicht.
Du darfts nicht sagen wie ich Leben.
Ich höre dich nicht

Das Leben ist kurz, Ich muss es leben.
Es ist ein Geschenk. Ich muss es geben.

Ich habe keine angst.

Ich weiß es nicht immer leicht ist.
Ich weiß ich manchmal Zweifele habe.
Ich werde halten nicht, vor ich beginne.
Ich will keine bewegende leiche sein.

You can copy and paste the lyrics in Altavista's babelfish translator, although, as usual, some of the stuff comes out all crooked. ("Weiß" is interpreted as "white" instead of "know," which is an understandable faux pas given that "Weiß ("white") is also a form of "wissen" (to know). And the translator doesn't recognize "darfts nicht" as "must not." But possibly you'll get the gist. If you listen to the tune and don't like it, well, sorry to waste your time. And if you do, drink a toast to these guys and these guys.

Critters on Parade

A quick critter update before I move to other things...Last week Lisa pointed out to me that Buster had been climbing the door jambs and clawing the living crap out of them. But the little guy really doesn't have anyplace to sharpen his claws or climb, so I made a decision: buy a cat tree. I had been eyeing one at the local planet-friendly pet shop, but I thought it was a bit expensive, though very well made of completely recycled materials. However, it was a lot less expensive then replacing our door jambs periodically. So I walked to the shop (Green Dog, a great place) with our luggage cart, and toted the thing home. Cookie took to it immediately:


However, Buster was initially frightened by it, reacting as if it was some giant, unmoving, golem-like creature brooding by the front window. However, after a little while he worked up his nerve and investigated it. Of course, now it's his favorite place:


In other critter news, I let Buddy in the back yard a couple hours ago for an early-evening pee-break. Suddenly, he started barking like mad -- and not his usual "pinging the neighborhood" bark to see if any other dogs were out, but rather a frantic "there's something back here!" bark. So I went out and behold! An opossum on the fence! Lisa managed to take a picture of the little guy:

Finally, after much yelling at Buddy to calm down, we all went back inside and let the poor critter continue on his way.

T-minus one month to Deutschland

Our trip to Deutschland is fast approaching! Lisa got her "informations" from Heidelberg that instruct her on where she needs to go and what she needs to do when we touch down, and that also included a nice map of the city. We decided to book a room at a nice little hotel in north Heidelberg on the day we arrive, rather than go straight to the University office for room registration. That way, after the ten-hour flight, trip through Frankfurt airport, and one-hour train (or bus) trip to Heidelberg, we can just crash, fall back and regroup. Then Lisa can be a bit fresher when she goes through the ordeal of getting her room assignment, room keys and other associated bureaucratic rigmarole. After reading about Heidelberg, I already feel as if I want to live there. We'll see how I feel when I see it in person!

My German studies are going well. I'm getting an "A" in my class, and can speak complete sentences and make myself understood...mostly. It's exciting but I still have many rough patches. For example, Lisa and I were out in a local cafe last Tuesday talking German with some of her classmates. They were asking about us and I said, or attempted to say, "Our life is boring." ("Wir leben ist Langeweile.") However, instead of pronouncing "leben" like this -- "lay-ben" -- I pronounced it "lee-ben" which is actually "lieben," or "love." Thus, I said, "Our love is boring." Lisa reacted suitably aghast and much fun was had at my expense. Oh well, I'll get better.

Once Lisa gets her room, (which should happen on Thursday, the day after we arrive) we'll have a few days before her classes start and we should be able to tour Heidelberg together. Part of the appeal for me will be to see many of the same sights Mark Twain describes in "A Tramp Abroad." Lisa will likely start classes on the following Monday. I'll be coming back the following Thursday, which will give me lots of time to poke around the town.

Then it will just be me and my brother in Portland until August. And THAT will be a whole other adventure!

A Hardware Man is Good to Find

It's hard to believe that it's been almost a year since I got my artificial hip. Today I went for a one-year-out follow-up with Dr. Hikes. The techs took some new x-rays and the Doc and I looked at the results. The prognosis: excellent. Everything is healing as it should, with plenty of solid bone growth and no nasty looking anomalies.

Here's the most fun x-ray, which shows not only the two screws Dr. Hikes used to secure my artificial socket into the tattered remains of my pelvis (the screws pointing upward in this photo), but also the big honkin' screw that's perpendicular to the joint which Dr. Sorkin (the trauma surgeon in Rockford, IL who put old Humpty together again) used to kinda gather all the pieces together. It's strange that I don't really think of all this hardware as alien artifacts or violations of my person. I think of it as really cool engineering. I guess that's because it's been such an improvement over the pre-surgery mangled hip.


In fact, I've healed so well that Dr. Hikes said it would be fine for me to attempt to ride the monster distances I used to ride before the calamity (with reasonable training first, of course). I wasn't sure if 50-70 mile rides through the mountain ranges of Oregon would be a good idea as far as wear on the hip was concerned. But in fact bicycling is one of the best things I can do. It's not weight bearing, doesn't subject the joint to the shock and pounding of an activity such as jogging, and it helps keep all the muscles and connecting tissue loose and flexible. Dr Hikes even said that my hip would likely withstand a spill without major damage. "Just don't get hit by another car," he said.

Aye, there's the rub. Do I confine my riding to bike paths, or do I get back out on the open road where it's most enjoyable, and most dangerous, to ride. Lisa would just as soon I stay in the "kiddie pool" and I can't say I blame her. But one of the reasons we moved out here from Chicago was to enjoy the beautiful scenery, and there's no better way to appreciate it than from a bike seat. I've been meaning to ride from Portland to the coast for FOUR YEARS now and for various reasons still haven't done it.

I also used to hike in the mountains but assured Lisa that actual mountain-climbing was not for me, mostly because of the risk of avalanches and crevasses. Said I, "I don't want to engage in an activity where you can do everything right and still get killed." That phrase sticks in my mind about cycling as well...it only takes one motorist yapping on a cell phone/reaching for a CD/putting on make-up/punching in a radio station to ruin your whole day. Look around you sometime and take note of the percentage of inattentive/distracted/angry motorists there are! Of course, everyone out there is rolling the dice on survival. It's just that it'd be really bad if I came up "snake eyes" again. If only I got the same thrill from knitting.

Success! (mostly)

Ha! Now I should be able to update this blog from Germany using just my handheld PDA! And all I'll need is a WiFi connection and the small ftp program loaded on "Sammy" that enables me to upload photos to the frinkenstein server. The secret was to turn off the "wysiwyg" editing option on Blogger. Doing so allows me to type posts in straight HTML, and thus I can enter the URL for my uploaded photos. With "wysiwyg" turned on, my Pocket PC version of Internet Explorer was unable to "see" the buttons that allow bloggers to switch back and forth between "compose" mode and "html" mode.

There are a few drawbacks: With the "wysiwyg" editor turned off, I can't adjust the size of the photos while typing the post (note giant Buddy photo below.) So I'll have to pay close attention to size of the photos before I upload them. There may be a way to resize photos on the handheld, but if so I haven't discovered it. Also, when I tried to post a follow-up last night using Sammy, for some reason I could only type a paragraph or so, and then the Pocket Internet Explorer browser cleared and I lost my post. It's unclear at this point if that's a Blogger problem, a browser problem or pilot error. (I'm typing this post on my laptop). So a little more experimentation is necessary. But so far, so good! And it's very cool to think that I can update my blog with just "Sammy," and, for convenience, my little flexible keyboard. I shall look quite geeky sitting in a coffee shop with my dinky handheld and keyboard -- but the entire rig will weight about a pound and fit into a coat pocket!

Okay, I promise that future posts will be less geeky and more interesting!

Handheld blog from bed!

Okay! I'm lying in bed tapping on my handheld, which I've named "Sammy" on account of it's a Samsung i-700. I believe I've figured out how to update this blog -- including photos -- usung just Sammy and a WiFi connection. The big test is if I can make a photo of Buddy appear. Here goes:

Further experimentation is necessary

Well, that didn't work out 100% well. I can do text posts from the handheld, but unlike working on the laptop (which I'm doing now) the handheld screen doesn't include an "edit HTML" link so right now I'm not sure how to provide a path to any photos that I upload. Also, I had to publish the previous post from my laptop, because once I saved it as a draft, I was unable to access it again on the handheld.

Oh well. That's why I'm fooling around with stuff two months before we take our trip to Germany. It will probably take me that long to figure out how to update my blog from there!

Anyway, here are some nice photos that I was trying to link to from the handheld. The first is evidence that the late winter months are "rainbow months" here in Portland. They are also the "hail months" but we haven't seen much of that yet.


The second is the modest crowd at Costello's during the Super Bowl, which consisted (it appeared) of regulars who were reading and dinking around on the 'net using laptops. I felt a bit conspicuous in my Bears jersey. But watching the game a Costello's was like going to a nice non-smoking friend's house who had really great beer (Fuller's ESB on tap) and great food (lovely grilled panini sandwiches.)

Handheld Super Post!

Woohoo!

I'm composing this post on my handheld Pocket PC, equipped with rollup keyboard and itty bitty WiFi card.

Actually, I was hoping to post from Costello's Travel Cafe during the Super Bowl half time show using their free WiFi, but their signal was unreliable. So instead I'm posting from my kitchen table at home.

This is a trial run to see if I can update my blog from my handheld. If so, I can update from Germany this spring when Lisa and I go and I can do so without taking my laptop. Pretty cool if it works. The only question is if I can include photos...the handheld doesn't seem to indicate an HTML window in the browser, which is what I use to include photos on this blog. So here's a test. Let's see if I can make a photo that I uploaded to my site earlier appear here:

This is why I shouldn't drink...much

Mercifully, the Chicago Bears season came to an end today. Because it's unlikely that many readers of this blog are fans of American football (or, as my sister-in-law and her British boyfriend call it, "meatball," to distinguish it from actual football which the rest of the world plays), I won't bore you with the many reasons why watching the Bears this season has been excruciating. Let's just say, the Bears suck and leave it at that.

However....

I will miss going to the local sports bar to watch the Bears games, because I really enjoy the company of my fellow suffering Bears fans. Each week, John, Jennifer, Rich and I get together and curse loudly at the Bears' ineptitude. Also we drink some. Not unusual behavior among sports fans, except that the first round of NFL games on the west coast starts at 10 am. So we usually order the first pitcher of delicious Oregon microbrew beer at 11 am or so. So by 1 pm we're pretty toasty. Not a lot, but some.

This leads me to to be pretty, uh, philosophical by early afternoon each Sunday. For instance, today Lisa and I got together after the game to go to a local theater/pub and watch "Napoleon Dynamite." (As an aside, it's a wonderful movie, best appreciated by those of us who spent high school as hopelessly geeky and unpopular dweebs in small towns in the "flyover states.") On the way home, Lisa was telling me how she hated the swimsuit that she would have to wear for her swimming class in the coming term. So I said, "So don't wear a suit. Swim naked."

She looked at me askance.

"Why not? It a chlorinated pool. And wearing a suit while swimming is stupid. It's just a product of our misguided puritanical upbringing."

"I'm not going to swim naked," she replied. "What about the creepy guys, like the uncle in Napoleon Dynamite?"

"A creepy guy will be a creepy guy regardless of whether you're wearing a swim suit or not," I countered.

"Let's talk about something else," Lisa said, in a tone that meant, "You've had too much to drink and you're annoying the shit out of me."

Of course, she's right. But so am I. Why do "the expected" if "the expected" makes you unhappy?

Anyway, being thus shut down, I began to think about my New Year's resolution. I usually like to try to pick a bad habit that I want to eliminate. This year, I've decided that I won't play computer games until everything on my "to do" list is completed. Which means never. But on the way home, inspired by "Napoleon Dynamite," I thought that another New Year's resolution should be, "I'm going to celebrate my uniqueness."

I'm not sure right now exactly what that means, but it will probably have something to do with pursuing activities that interest me regardless of whether they serve some sort of "purpose" or not. And what's sad is I'm not sure if I can determine what those activities are if I'm completely sober. I think I need to have had a couple of drinks to overcome my natural Presbyterian tendency to dismiss things that don't serve an overt "goal" as "stupid."

When I was a teenager, I enjoyed astrophotography, certainly not because it had any marketable value or because "everyone was doing it" but because it interested me. A few years ago, I gave up my full-time job and started working part-time so I could take piano lessons in order to expand my knowledge of music theory, with the goal of writing music for films. Unlikely? Yes! Waste of time? No!

Anyway, my New Year's resolution of celebrating my uniqueness may lead me to do something far-fetched. I'm just not sure if I can identify my uniqueness sober. But I hope so. Drunks are annoying, and rarely correct.

Buster: The Cat Who Hated Christmas!

Our newest cat, Buster, is quite the riot. If he were a person, he'd be the epitome of today's "extreme" (or is that X-treme?) generation, and no doubt he'd ride a snowboard/skateboard and wear a goatee. He runs around like crazy, sometimes literally climbing the walls, and he's fascinated with running water. When Lisa takes a bath, he'll sit on the side of the tub and shove both his forearms into the suds all the way up to his shoulders. He's actually a very cool cat, but much as some folks have to "childproof" their house, we have to "Busterproof" ours, being sure not to leave small, shiny, breakable items on tables or on the window sills.

Thus, I knew I was tempting fate when I constructed our annual "Christmas alter." We usually don't have a tree because hauling one is a lot of trouble if you don't own a car, and the cats would knock it over anyway. I thought, however, that I might be able to build a nice holiday display where Lisa and I could put our presents:



What was I thinking?...





That's okay. He's really a good kitty. But you can see that a real tree would be a real problem!

Deutscheland or bust?

A few days ago, Lisa found out that Portland State University had room for her in their "study abroad" program (insert silly "study a broad" joke here) . This would be for summer school -- approximately mid-April to Mid-July -- and an excellent opportunity for her, as a German major, to study and learn the language under ideal circumstances, i.e., in Germany. Because there's no reason that her application won't be accepted (they have room, she has more than completed the prerequisites and her grades are great), we've been going on the assumption that the trip will happen.

Ideally, I'd like to be with her the whole time, but there are a couple problems with that. Primarily, we're uncomfortable with both of us leaving Buddy for three straight months. Also, her housing is paid for if she lives in a dorm, so it makes sense to take advantage of that (especially given the crappy dollar/euro exchange rate right now, thanks a bunch George W. you deficit-spending chimp). Although each student has their own room, it's still a tiny space with shared common areas. And as much as we love each other, spending three months in a room the size of a walk-in closet could be difficult for us both. Plus, I lived in a dorm during my first two years in college, and I have no burning desire to repeat that experience. To put it mildly.

So right now we're planning that I fly over with her, spend two/three weeks, come home, then fly back at the end of her stay for two/three weeks and have a bit of a belated honeymoon in Europe.

All fine and good, but that means a lot of planning.

First, what to do with the pets? My sister Tavia has graciously offered to take Buddy for the duration, but I'd have to get him out to Ohio and it doesn't solve the problem of what to do with our three cats. Luckily, my brother Steve has tentatively agreed to move out to Portland and house sit during that time and mind the boys and the homestead. It works out well for him because he's been wanting to spend an extended time here -- with a possibility of the move being permanent -- and this would give him a chance to live rent-free and look for a job from a stable home base. Plus he loves the animals and they love him.

Second, I want to learn at least a bit of the language. I've heard that many Germans speak at least some English because it's widely taught in their schools. But I want to make the effort to converse auf Deutsche while I'm in Deutscheland, as I think it's rude to expect them to know YOUR language when you are in THEIR country. So I signed up for a beginning German class at Portland Community College. (This has the added benefit of me not having to pay back my student loans right away -- ha ha!).

And third, I need to get a passport. I've always wanted to get one but never had the impetus. Now I do, so I ordered a copy of my birth certificate, and today I went downtown to the Post Office to submit my passport application. With that, I really got excited about the prospect of going to a completely new country and expanding my horizons (literally). The helpful woman at the Post Office noted that on my application under "occupation" I'd put "writer." She said, "This should give you something good to write about!" And how!

Lots can happen between now and then, but I'm looking forward to the trip already. Many of my relatives are from Germany, and also, I've heard they have beer there. Just a rumor, probably.

Wingding Explained

For reasons that defy explanation, Argotnaut's sister (the good Doctor Lizardo) has asked that I explain "Wingding*," an activity my siblings and I enjoyed when I was a kid. Well, who am I to resist the charms of a beautiful woman? I'm only human.

First, some background. I am one of five kids. We average about two years apart in age. I'm the second youngest. If you haven't met us Heckmans, it will be difficult for you to image the tumult of five Heckman kids, all between the ages of five and 15, gathered in one place. The noise level was akin to a thousand gas-powered leaf blowers blasting up the asses of a thousand ornery mastodons. (The carnage level was also roughly equivalent).

Anyway, the first floor of the house in which we grew up had a layout similar to a square...there was a sort of central core that contained the stairs to the second floor, as well as closets and the door to the basement. This created a natural racing circuit roughly 20 feet on a side; if one was so inclined, one could run around the central core over and over.

Thus, "Wingding" was born. All five kids would run this circuit one after the other. Understand, this was no game in the usual sense. There was no "winner" as such, as Wingding was not a race, but rather a cruel test of one's survival instincts and reflexes. The object, such as it was, was to sabotage the path of the person running behind you. Just about any obstacle was in play. For example, you might toss a throw rug or towel behind you so that your pursuer would wipe out on the hardwood floors like a drunken Mario Andretti taking a header at Le Mans. Dropping objects in the path -- magazines, toys, the occasional handful of jacks -- was par for the course. The coup de grace, however, was to fling open the door to a closet or to the basement so that the person flying blind around the corner would slam into it face first: FWAM! It was even better if the pursuers plowed into the face-planter as he or she stood stunned and immobilized, staring dazedly at the door as it vibrated from the impact.

Thus, we created own version of the chariot race in Ben Hur, with a nearly equivalent amount of sweat, bloodshed, flying bodies and scar tissue.

It goes without saying that Wingding was played only when our parents were away. It ended only when the final runner stopped running, either for reasons of exhaustion or through attrition. Finally we would hurriedly pick up the discarded tripping hazards, glue or otherwise camouflage broken furniture or decorative items, affix any necessary bandages and tell our parents when they got home that any broken crockery or knick-knacks "just, I don't know, fell off the shelf or something, I guess." I doubt if they were fooled.

Some of my siblings read this blog and I welcome their recollections of any particularly violent and/or hilarious episodes.

* Webster's Dictionary indicates that "wingding" is one word, although in this case, I think "Wing-Ding!!" with two or three exclamation points would be the appropriate spelling.

Red state/blue state

Well, it's been a week since the election and the United States hasn't slid into the sea (seas?) However, there's been much yappin' by pundits that the U.S. in actuality looks a little something like this:



It's easy to focus on the whole "moral values" issue that exit polls indicated was so important. It's fun, too, because everyone can make pronouncements about Bud-swillin' NASCAR dads and right-wing survivalist nut jobs and bible-thumpin'"Babtists," (as Joe-Bob Briggs likes to pronounce it.)

Personally, I think the reason Kerry lost was the reason that Gore "lost." He's a stiff! The zombies in "Shaun of the Dead" had more personality! Neither candidate had the charisma to sell a used car, much less convince voters of their qualifications for running the country. And let's face it, that's what the President is: a salesman. He (or perhaps she in 2008) can set policy, but the administration has no legislative power. All the President can do is make a sales pitch and hope Congress goes along. Or, barring that, gain favor with the populace, which controls Congress.

So the presidential election always comes down to a popularity contest. And in times of uncertainty, people stick with the devil they know, or at least the devil with whom they're most comfortable. Thus, the most likeable candidate usually wins it in a walk (see Reagan vs Carter, Reagan vs Mondale, Bush I vs Dukakis, Clinton vs Bush I, Clinton vs Dole, etc.). Likeability usually trumps other factors. Thus, Clinton was re-elected in a landslide despite his questionable ethics because 1) people liked him, and 2) Dole was a big stiff. It's hard to imagine a person who comes across as a bigger stiff than Bush I (although I respect the man), but damned if the Democrats didn't manage to field Mr. Excitement, Michael Dukakis.

I think the only reason W had trouble in his election the first time around is because people didn't know what to expect from him. Based on ability, Al Gore should have cleaned his clock. But Gore came across as a golem, particularly in the debates. To paraphrase Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness, voters couldn't shake the feeling that if you poked Gore with your finger, nothing would come out but a little dirt and some straw.

Same with Kerry. I think the only reason the election was close was that Bush had made such an enormous mess in Iraq. But the masses were willing to overlook that because, gosh-darn it, they just liked Bush more, despite the fact that W is (arguably) the most reckless, irresponsible president the U.S. has suffered in the last 100 years. Yes, yes, the presidential election should be about who is the more capable candidate. But it hasn't been decided on that since the advent of television. And probably before that.

So the Democratic Party can talk all they want about unity and finding common ground. But what they really need is a candidate who doesn't remind voters of the robotic bears at Chuck E Cheese. Let's just hope Bush & Company don't completely mortgage the future of the country in the meantime with deficit-exploding mix of military spending, deferred-payment health care and tax reduction.

Processing...

My mood has improved a bit since the deep election day gloom. It didn't start out well today with the headline in the paper saying "Bush calls for unity." Well, yeah. He said that four years ago, and he then created the most polarized electorate I can remember.

The subhead was "President reaches out to those who voted for Kerry," and I thought, "Sure, you seek to unite as long as those people a) aren't women who want the right to choose, b) aren't gays or lesbians who have the temerity to seek equal protection under the law, c) aren't middle and lower class Americans who want health insurance, d) aren't parents who fear that trillion dollar deficits will saddle their children with a debt that they'll never get out from under. Unfortunately, that leaves out everybody except your wealthiest one percent pals, so good luck with that unification thing, Dubya.

Perhaps now that he doesn't have to worry about being reelected, Dubya can be a bit more conciliatory. But there's no reason, really, is there? The GOP gained in Congress, so the politics of fear and divisiveness are working, right? Pick a fight with some towel-heads and all the NASCAR dads and cranky old uncles will be on your side.

So what's left for us? In the immortal words of Joe Strummer from The Clash on Know Your Rights: "You have the right to free speech as long as you're not dumb enough to actually try it!" Steve Duin, a columnist in "The Oregonian" who basically serves as the paper's conscience, said essentially the same thing in this morning's column. Don't shut up...Karl Rove & Co. don't win unless we roll over.

I'm not going to roll over. Are you?

Bush & Co.

I don't have the time or, really, the inclination to do a big post about election results, even though I'm sure I'm the ONLY blogger who will do so.

Instead, here's an e-mail I sent to a friend of mine this morning which pretty much sums up our mood here.

"Yes, there's been much snorfling by the missus this morning. She's really upset. It ain't over yet, but it looks like another four years of the smirking chimp and his weapons of domestic destruction. However, this too shall pass. What's more discouraging to me is that most states that had the measure on the ballot approved bans of same-sex marriages, effectively approving the writing discrimination into state constitutions, based on religious reasons no less. That even happened here in Oregon, which was a shock. Lisa and I will take a couple of days to process what it all means, but I wouldn't be very surprised if we became Europeans in the next six months or so. Portland State University (where Lisa is attending class) has agreements with many foreign schools that would allow her to continue her studies uninterrupted and still get low-interest loans. Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Scotland (Edinburgh) and even New Zealand are under consideration at the moment.

I don't blame Bush for the debacle this time...I blame the 51 million Americans who voted for him despite his track record. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on the electorate. It really makes me feel that I have nothing in common with my fellow Americans, but it's important to keep in mind that nearly half of the country feels the same way we do. I just can't fathom why anyone in good conscience could vote for a president who has lost a million jobs, rung up the biggest deficit in the nation's history and gotten thousands of service men and women killed in a war that we didn't need to fight. "

Maybe more later. Maybe not.

You shall know them by their geekiness

As I stated in a previous post, I am a certified weather geek. I come by this honestly. My Dad was a private pilot and also a flight instructor. When I was a kid, he often taught "ground school" at our house, where several aspiring pilots would gather to watch educational film strips. These film strips seemed old THEN, and if I know my Dad, they were probably made in the 1950s, because according to him nothing manufactured after the 1960 Nash Rambler was ever worth a damn. The film strips came in little canisters like 35mm film does now, and were accompanied by LP records. You would stick the beginning of the film strip into a special projector that had a record player built in, and start the LP; "bleeps" on the record would tell you when to advance to the next slide. The projector was delighfully low tech and had a really cool, "3-in-1 Oil" smell.

Dad would often let me sit in on these ground school sessions and run the projector, as long as I kept my mouth shut. Thus, I was learning about occluded fronts while other boys my age were learning about RBIs (that's a baseball term for "runs batted in," Lisa). Personally, I loved the stuff and found it endlessly fascinating. I mean, how could you not? We're talking cumulonimbus here!

Weather is a big deal to pilots for obvious reasons. It's also a big deal in the agrarian Midwest. One of the few things I miss about the Midwest is the apocalyptic thunderstorms, when the lightning is strobe-like in its frequency, the rain comes down as if through God's own spigot and the huge cottonwood trees in our back yard would flap around in the tornadic wind like giant stalks of overripe celery.

Lisa, bless her, appreciates my weather geekery and for my birthday got me a weather station ( a Weathertech FX 6000....oooooooh.) It consists of two pieces placed outside the house (an anemometer and a temperature/humidity sensor) that communicate via radio waves with a base station in the house. The base station looks like this


As you can see, it also has a barometric pressure sensor and, for enhanced geekiness, a moon phase indicator and a clock that gets its time from the U.S. atomic clock! I have put the outside bits in a temporary location in front of the house; being new homeowners, we have yet to get a ladder so I can put the anemometer on the top of the house where it belongs. Maybe I can do that this weekend. Might as well clean the gutters while I'm at it, since every weathergeek Portlander knows that the monsoon is soon to arrive!

$12.50 My Ass!

Our newest cat, Buster, is a very active and inquisitive boy. He's a riot because he's one of those cats that wants to play with everything. By the same token, he also needs lots of stuff to keep him occupied (maybe he has ADHD?)

I noticed that he liked to intentionally bat his little furry mouse toys underneath doors and the stove and then have fun trying to dig them out. So the last time I was in our neighborhood pet store, I seriously considered getting him a "Bizzy Kitty Entertainment Center," which looks like this:


However, the thing cost $12.50! So I thought, "$12.50 my ass! I can take a cardboard box and carve holes in it."

So, that's what I did, using an empty cat litter box. Not a very highly designed looking piece of engineering, I admit. At first, Buster (and Buddy) where a little confused by the thing.


But once I shook it to let Buster know there was a mouse in there, it was "game on!"



Ha! Just like in the ad! Another mission accomplished for "dull edge man!"

The great dull-edge challenge

Now that I have a chance to spend more time doing arty stuff, I've been having trouble finding the motivation. Not a new problem, but one I've decided I'm going to try to solve this time. So I thought back to the days when I was writing a lot of music in my late 20s/early 30s. What was I doing then that I'm doing differently now? That's a complicated question, but an inescapable factor was the fact that I didn't do much drinking at home during that time. Certainly, I would pound a few when I was out with friends or at band rehearsal. But I rarely had beer or wine at home. So I've decided to knock off drinking at home.

Now, I didn't drink that much, rarely more than 2-3 glasses of wine or 2-3 bottles of beer. But I've been doing that every single night. And since I've been showing signs of being mildly depressed -- not interested in things I used to be interested in, not a lot of energy, general apathy, just kind of "existing" -- I figured a good approach would be to maybe knock off the depressants. Duh!

Currently, I'm in day three of no drinking, and it seems my energy level is already up. The last couple of days, I've spent the afternoons finally getting the house in order. I mounted a coat rack on the wall by the door, mopped and scrubbed the floors, and just generally tidied and organized the living room/kitchen area. That's not big stuff, but it's stuff that I've been meaning to do for several weeks and just haven't "gotten around" to even though I've been home all day with plenty of opportunity.

Today I went to a local department store (the mighty Fred Meyer) and got an entry way table in which we can store our dog walking/poopy bag/grungy out-and-about paraphernalia. Again, something I've been meaning to do for weeks but now suddenly had the energy to accomplish.

It will be very interesting to see how this pans out. It would put me pretty square into the "straight edge" camp, a philosophy of no alcohol, no tobacco, no casual sex (no problem there, happily). Hard-core straight edge types tend to also eschew meat products and caffeine, the goal being a unencumbered and unfiltered awareness of one's own body and mind. I don't know how far I'll take it, but so far, the great "dull edge" challenge is promising. At the very least, we're saving a lot of money.

If it works out, I might have to see how a more hard-core approach works. I've already reduced my caffeine intake to half of what it was, and I may eliminate that entirely as well, because it really affects my biorhythms. Too much coffee makes me ready to take on the world one moment, and then a half-hour later, ready to take a nap.

I know Lisa would like me to do the vegetarian thing, and I'm pretty much a "meat reductionist" as it is. But I don't have a big problem with eating meat. After all, in the wild, most animals end their lives in the mouth of a predator. It's just that our societal standard is meat with every meal. Meat abuse, as it were. I kind of compromise with a meaty meal once a week or so, but I insist that it's free range, rather than raised in a cage in a factory someplace being pumped full of chemicals. We Americans just eat too much meat, and junky meat at that; in fact, we eat too much junky stuff, period.

Anyway, so far so good. I like that I've actually got energy throughout the day, and that I seem to have a bit more discipline about actually doing things rather than just think about doing them. Other benefits may become apparent as I go along. We'll see!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Yup, October 3rd was another birthday for yours truly. I was hoping the Cubs would give me the gift of two...count 'em...two consecutive trips to the postseason. Too much to ask for. I guess that surviving 'til age 43 will have to do.

Lisa, knowing that I'm a huge weather geek (yes, it's true), gave me the gift of geekery: a handy-dandy weather station, complete with one of those windspeed...cup...twirly...thingies. You mount the sensor stuff outside, but the guts are inside, so you don't have to go OUT in the weather to see what's going ON with the weather. Haven't set it up yet but it looks like hours of weather-geek fun!

After the present-openin' interval, we went to see "Shaun of the Dead," the new zom-rom-com (zombie romantic comedy). What a great flick! I highly recommend it for those who enjoy British humour and can handle the occasional gore. Only one scene is truly squirmy...in other bloody scenes, the gore is played for laughs much like Monty Python. The bit when the two heroes are using record albums as weapons and trying to figure out which to throw and which to keep is priceless!

Finally, we went to the Moon & Sixpence, an English pub (just the ticket after watching a movie featuring much drinking in an English pub). Lisa wanted me to try the "Yorkshire fish cakes," which according to a well-informed Limey source consists of fish between two slices of potato, which is then deep fried. I wasn't in the mood that night, but must try it soon.

In non-birthday news, I finally finished my first short story and I'm preparing to send it off. Once I get things cleaned up enough around here to reach "easy maintenance level," I'm going to start on the next story. I haven't been writing as much as I'd like because I've been busy doing investment research to determine how to invest the settlement. Of course, the only thing that makes Lisa's eyes glaze over faster than sports talk is financial securities talk. But I'm pretty close to having that figured out.

D'oh! It's started raining here and my weather station isn't up yet! Ain't that just the way.

New Day Rising

I've often heard it said that "life is full of surprises." Well, given the last couple of months, I would have to agree -- with a VENGEANCE!

After looking for a job in Portland in between surgeries and moves for about a year and a half, I finally landed a job at Alling Henning Associates in mid-May. AHA! (as they like to be called) is a smallish (about 30 people) marketing communications firm based in Vancouver, Washington. I was ecstatic when I got the job and looked forward to working there for a long time. However, "life" intervened. In June, I settled with the insurance company of the woman who ran over me two years ago. The result is that Lisa and I, if we're very frugal, can live off the investment proceeds of the settlement.

Many times I've heard people say that they wished they didn't have to work for a living. But that begs the question, "If you didn't have to work, what would you do?" After giving the matter a lot of thought, I decided to get serious about fiction writing. Unfortunately, working at AHA! required not only a nine-hour day, but a 50-60 minute commute each way. When I got home, I'd usually be too tired after cooking dinner and walking the dog to even recall my name, much less knock out a couple pages of decent prose.

The solution, I thought, was to work part-time. AHA! is a great place to work, with good people to work with and good people to work for. However, such an arrangement wasn't in the cards...it wasn't fair to many of the writers who'd been there far longer than I, and also the workload dictated a full-time writer, not a part-time one. So it was either full time or no time.

I had last weekend to think about it, and on Monday I gave them the answer: I'd put off my fiction writing dream long enough. So I told my boss "thanks very much, too bad we couldn't work it out, when should my last day be?" And she said, "Well, the pay period ends Wednesday."

So it was a bit abrupt but actually good timing as I was just finishing up a big project and the next big project was just getting started.

So. Here I am unemployed again. I'm hoping to work part-time somewhere, partly because I like to work and also because I benefit from the structure imposed by having to be somewhere at a given time. We'll see how it works out.

In the meantime, I'm working on some story ideas and hope to begin actively writing very soon, say, tomorrow.

So my question to you is: what would YOU do if you didn't have to work for a living? I look forward to your comments!

Homesteading

Yesterday, Lisa and I went to sign the stack of papers to finance our new house. Well, Lisa did the signing. The line of credit is in her name.

Funny story...well, not funny but, rather, annoying. Now that we have the settlement, we have assets on hand to buy the house outright. But I chose not to do that because a) we can use the mortgage interest tax break and 2) interest rates on a 15-year mortgage are only about 5.7% right now, so I figure I can invest that money and make more than 5.7% a year with it, thereby coming out ahead in the long run.

Problem was my credit rating. Before the calamity, my credit was immaculate, after having climbed out of debt after my first marriage. Unfortunately, after the calamity, we had many health care vendors knocking on our door asking "Uh. You owe us $250,000. Where's our money? Or are we gonna hafta muss ya up?" All I could tell them was that my injuries were the result of an auto accident, that the case was in litigation, and I'd give them the dough soon as I could. (This being America, everyone was familiar with auto accident injuries, on account o' they is ubiquitous. But that's another screed and I digress). I thought I'd contacted everyone, but apparently, a few of the bills were sent to collection without my being told.

The upshot of this blather is that my credit didn't allow us to get the low mortgage rate. However, LISA's credit rating is sparkling. But as a part-time employee, her income is not very high. So the nice mortgage lady ("props and a shout out" to Liana Gulzow at Washington Mutual) suggested we get a line of credit in Lisa's name, which is contingent on her credit rating (excellent) and assets (plenty, with settlement in hand). Then we use that to purchase the home and lock in the low rate. So we had to do some dinkin' around be we ended up getting what we wanted.

So, as of the county's receipt of the papers today, Lisa and I are officially home owners!

Yikes!

After the signing, Lisa and I had a lovely late lunch at the Reinlander German restaurant here in PDX, and discussed how we're going to fit all the stuff in the yard that we want -- solarium structure, deck/patio, Asian garden, regular garden, cat coop/dog run. I think it'll work because of the way the lot is set up: the house doesn't really have a back yard. Rather, it's surrounded by a strip of land about 15 feet wide -- not usable as a traditional back yard, i.e., a volleyball area, but perfect if you want to put in a lot of small installations. Plus, no mowing in back!

Next up: moving day, probably this Monday!

Stupid Loin Girding!

Time to get ready for another busy week.

Tomorrow, Lisa and I go to sign the stack of papers to make the new house ours. Well, technically, it won't be ours until all the fees are paid (ching), the papers are couriered over to the court house (ching) and I give them a cashier's check for the 20% down payment (cha-(infix)-CHING!). At least Lisa and I won't really have to sweat this part like many people do, but I still expect the blood to drain from both our faces when confronted with the reality of home and mortgage. Already, the amounts we're dealing with don't actually seem real to me. They're just numbers, like when Carl Sagan talked about the Milky Way galaxy containing "billions and billions of stars." You can't really comprehend it beyond the fact that, "Yup. That's a whole lotta stars."

Also, I won't know whether the other writer I've been working with on a big project at work will be there tomorrow or for the next three weeks...his wife's due date was last Friday, and she appeared to be poised to drop their first kid at any time. When that happens, he's taking three weeks off, then working part time for the next three weeks. We're both fortunate to be working for a company that has such an enlightened policy toward paternity leaves, but it also means I'll be handling the load for the six weeks. All I can say is, it's a good thing I hate being bored.

And finally, Lisa and I will want to move into the new place as soon as we can (we should get the keys on Friday). Luckily, as I told my half-brother Stuart, this time we can manage to do a "dream move," meaning we pay somebody to pack the stuff and we pay somebody to move the stuff. Meanwhile, Buddy will be vacationing at the beautiful "Howliday Inn" resort in exciting SE Portland, and Lisa and I will be downing margaritas. That oughtta take the sting out of the living hell that normally is "moving."

I also would like to finally get the "frinkenstein.com" page up and running at least in some form -- featuring abundant links to fun stuff and the AMAZING "Andrew's rotating pelvis page, with 3D CAT scans of my pre-op pelvis -- but I don't know if my loins are ready for THAT much girding. "ow Ow OWW!"