Bummer Reading List

I read a lot. Enough so that I end up re-reading stuff I have read many times before. It recently occurred to me that mostly what I read is garbage.

I used to love anti-establishment books like It Can't Happen Here, 1984, and Brave New World. Now I find the protagonists to be weak and thoroughly unlikeable troublemakers (Animal Farm is still OK, for reasons I can't really put my finger on). I even used to have a copy of the Anarchist's Cookbook because it was purportedly cool to own it, but even way back then I thought it was puerile and impractical and just plain stupid. I can't picture myself owning a copy now even for kitsch value.

Stephen King's The Stand was my all-time favorite book until I saw the absolutely horrible mini-series with Molly Ringwald as Frannie Goldsmith. I remember thinking at the time that she was a total insult to the memory I had of her character. But when I picked up the expanded version of that book and re-read it I discovered that she nailed the part perfectly. Many of the actors and actresses were awful and the directing and screenplay adaption were abysmal, but she was not the problem.

.

The problem was that the character herself is whiny and childish and really just plain silly. Years later I read the book again. A closer examination of my previously cherished parts of the book revealed that 90% of the characters had outrageous flaws that would be grossly out of place in a non-crazy real-life human being. As I grew more and more impatient with the odd outward behavior and very wacko internal monologues, I found this book was far from perfect and about 500 pages longer than it needed to be.

I re-read my once beloved Hitchhiker's Guide series and found the humor is very forced and the main character (Arthur Dent) is a petulant moron that never seems to get the hang of anything. The last two extremely disjointed books of the series should have never been written - they dragged and dragged and just made me angry in an "ineffable" way.

I feel the same disappointment for all of the Dilbert books, too.

Most of the popular science books I used to love describe how cool everything is going to be once we are all flying our fusion-powered quantum-computer-based AI-driven rocket-cars... On the moon... Tomorrow... Or maybe next Thursday at the very latest. It was fun to look forward to that, but I am going to be putting the lot of them up on craigslist shortly.

So what is different? Why are these comforting old friends of the past no longer entertaining? Is it just because I am older and grumpier and it's time to put away childish things or whatever?

Eh... Maybe, but I don't think so. I think what I am discovering about myself is that I am more of a builder than a destroyer. Much of what I listed above has a definite "destruction of the status quo" theme ( even the future-y science-y books) and that makes "now-me" a little uncomfortable, frankly.

I like painting rooms, sanding old wood, repurposing discarded furniture, and mowing lawns. I like to work with my hands to craft a firepit from leftover stone and to use my mind to discover the key to a difficult cipher. I like seeing things grow be they fescue out front, a tomato plant out back, or my son crawling around all points in between. In short, I like when my efforts make my little world a marginally better place and I prefer when it takes a little while to get that way (because instantaneous wish fulfillment is just another form of chaos, after all).

.

And if that means that my flying car won't be delivered until Friday, I'm totally cool with that.

Back Home!

We made it back home yesterday! :)

Today we get to host a work party! :(

New Poll! It's on the right!

New Photo (on the right)! Can you guess what common, everyday thing these apparently necessary instructions are from?

Writer's Block

Can't really think of anything good to write, but I wanted to publish something.

(Hmm... It's disturbing that I have reviewed any number of technical conference papers that clearly have had only that objective in mind... )

Oh, I have a few things in the queue that need some polish but simply are not ready yet. One is a list of odds on stuff happening (like odds you will be hit by lightning vs. odds were on the 2008 USA Olympic team) that I was going to use as an interesting space filler. One is a prediction of swine flu severity that I won't be able to finish this until I get back from "vacation" since a lot of my data is on another computer.

I've got a bunch of stuff about my one-year-old of course (one is entitled "What is the Meaning of 'dis'?") , but I am trying to space that stuff out a little.

I had a little thing sketched out about how I accidentally "defeated" the elevator security system at the hotel but posting that might get a celebrity stalked or stabbed or whatever it is the trendy crazies are doing nowadays.

I also had a scathing review of a steak restaurant pop into my head as I was trying to force myself to choke down the blandtastically overrated meal, but I figure I will give it another shot when I get back in town in case a friend is right about the reason it was a disappointment. He probably is but, like I said, I may get into that later.

Another friend and I had a pretty in-depth and interesting (to me) discussion on the problems and solutions of sea-water desalinization so I could chat about that for a while... But I need to polish that info up quite a bit to make it even remotely readable without making it the literary equivalent of sniffing a chloroform soaked rag.

I leave Nashville tomorrow so I may not get a chance to post unless the muse is upon me and I can craft something mentally while I am sloooowly making my way back to the halfway point tomorrow. Maybe I'll see something interesting or amusing or grizzly to photograph on the way there and post the picture when we get in at 10PM or so. But probably not.

Any good topic ideas? Let me know - post a comment.

New Poll

Hey! New Poll! It's on the right.

Arrived in Nashville

Well, we made it to Nashville yesterday. It took 9 hours and 11 minutes to get to the half-way point, and an additional 9 hours and 10 minutes to complete the second half of the journey the next day. Oh, wait. 10 hours and 10 minutes. Stupid time zone change. Anyway, that makes an average of about 30mph. Go Greased Lightning, go Greased Lightning!

And let me tell you something – there is nothing a one-year-old loves more than to be strapped into a chair and asked to sit there for hours on end... especially when they have just discovered the freedom of walking. However, if they do become displeased for any reason whatsoever, including absolutely no reason whatsoever, they will let you know loudly and without pause for as long as it takes for you to randomly try everything in your power to soothe them. Picture the “red alert” klaxon from Star Trek coupled with a set of bagpipes that are continuously and slowly deflating in your backseat.

Oh, don't get me wrong, nothing you will do will work, and I seriously pity you if you are reading this looking for some sort of advice. No... the best thing you can do is get to wherever the hell you are traveling so you can start writing that explanatory autobiography for your future 18-year-old entitled “Why Daddy Drinks”.

But we made it. Am I some sort of hero? Do I deserve a medal? Sure. Probably. But until they actually come up with a “Doing Your Damn Job” decoration, let me pass out some of my own:

Least Mountain-Friendly Vehicle to Travel In
The Toyota Prius wins this award hands down. Sure, 50 mpg is awesome but tack “struggles like an elderly, two-legged pack mule” to the list of traveling negatives for this car. I will go over the rest of the bad stuff in detail at another time but let me sum up the mountain driving for now. City driving – great. Highway driving – pretty good. Slightly-to-slightly-more-than-slightly sloped terrain – take a something meatier like a tuk-tuk instead.

Nicest Big Box Store Ever
Usually my mood sinks a little upon entering a Wal-Mart... wait... let me correct that. Actually, my mood drops like a stone whenever I even think about entering a Wal-Mart. I guess that's because the ones in my area are squalid, crowded, cramped hellholes that are staffed by people way too rude and slow to work at the DMV. So that was my mindset when we discovered that I left the stroller at home. “Fine, we should have two anyway, so let's find a... sigh...Wal-Mart... and pick one up.”
The outside of this place (in Newport, TN) was clean. There was ample parking. These two facts alone were so suspicious that I though that I might somehow be walking into some sort of ingenious and elaborate trap, but it got worse. (Or better. Whatever.) The aisles of merchandise were wide and nicely lit. The people were very helpful and friendly. You didn't have to dig rain-soaked trash out of a broken cart to use it. Here's the kicker: it was not new. It opened in 1995 (I just had to ask). To be honest, it was such a pleasant experience that we both really felt ill-at-ease until we were leaving the parking lot. Kudos, clearly Stepford Wives owned and operated big box store!

Most Echo-y Restaurant or Eatery
There is a pretty nice place in Cookeville, TN we stopped at for lunch (can't think of the name of it but it ends in “z” and Google Street View only has this image taken around Christmastime). Good food, very polite wait staff, great prices, and flawless acoustics. The one-year-old loves indoor places where he can admire the reverb of the walls by happily shouting “DA-DA” non-stop until we are forced to leave. Not out of embarrassment (hey, I've knowingly walked around with shirts caked in sweet potato mush – this is not about me), but out of consideration for the other patrons. So we took the food outside to the...

Most Ant-Filled Courthouse Lawn in America
We laid down the picnic blanket and started to eat outside the Cookeville Courthouse where we were immediately besieged by infinity ants of a variety that would have put Noah's Ark to shame. Scenery was nice but lunch was short.

Dirtiest Look from an Absolute Stranger
This award goes to the guy in the hotel elevator as he realized that me and my armloads of infant stuff were staying on the same floor as he was. Well done, sir! I was a little busy carrying the third load to the room after my drive, but if I see you again during my stay, I will be sure to congratulate you in person over and over again.

That's all for now, except to mention the bar/restaurant at the hotel in Nashville makes the second-best mojito I have ever had.

Internet Issues

Hotel network issues kept me from posting last night.

Now I got me a whole mess o' Internet, so I will post when the kid is napping. :)

Sigh. Going on a Trip.

Going on the very first long-duration vacation with the wife and the little man. We leave tomorrow.

You know, before I was married it used to take me 12 hours to drive 600 miles (those of you crazy-astronaut-slash-Cannonball-Run types who say "*snif* I can do it in eight" just be quiet...).

After I got married, the same journey all of a sudden takes 20-hours because of bathroom breaks that require actual bathrooms (instead of the usual patch of bushes) and requests like "Oooh, can we stop at Cutesy McTimewasters Fake Antique Emporium and Bore-o-Rama, please?"

Now, with an infant I find out the trip is going to take the better part of two days! If that's just the way of the world, it is no longer a mystery to me why it took the Israelites forty damn years to get out of the desert. The potty breaks alone must have taken at least half that time.

The only way around this, I figure, is time travel. If anyone has a Delorean with optional flux capacitor I can borrow for a week, please let me know before tomorrow. Thanks.

(Ahhh... now the license plate makes sense...)

Little Man's First Step!

My son took his first official intentional step last night and I was there to see it! Woo hoo!

This is especially cool because he did not learn how to crawl until about 1 month ago. Before that, he rolled his fat little body everywhere in complicated epicycle-like arcs until he 1) got to where he was going 2) got to someplace more interesting than was originally intended or 3) got stuck up against a piece of furniture. Because of this, his aunt and uncle used to lovingly call him "Homerball" after Homer Simpson's power in the Simpson's video game.

About a week after he learned how to crawl he learned to "cruise". For those of you that don't know, cruising is walking while holding onto objects for support. Most of us usually don't do this unless wintertime North Atlantic sea travel or binge drinking is involved.

Many of his adventures in cruising so far have been successful, but a few have been real face-busters. Fortunately, the type of mishap he goes through at least once a day (that would put me in the hospital eating through a tube and blinking in Morse code for my bedpan to be changed) does not do too much to deter him. After the requisite 30-second crying spell he's off again like a shot. You know, he might be a Highlander, because I have heard that they also are immune to injury from collapsing into an oak dresser jaw-first...

Over the past several days he has been letting go of things and just standing there. Usually it is unintentional - as though he is completely unaware that the act of grabbing remote control off the coffee table with both hands has resulted in him becoming a free-standing entity. As soon as he realizes what he is doing, however, he immediately collapses onto his bottom (geeks read: this is exactly how Arthur Dent manages to fly).

Well, last night he was leaning up against the couch and turned a little to face me. I said "C'mon, buddy, come to da-da". He let go, took a step, and stopped. He looked genuinely amazed at himself but he might just have been mimicking my amazement. Lacking a "Step 2" to his "Plan A", he went on to "Plan B" and sat down and crawled over to me. I am very proud!

So, to sum up: 6 or 7 months of rolling hither and yon, 1 month of crawling, 2 weeks of cruising, and now his first step. At this rate, I don't know what he will be doing a week from now, but I hope it doesn't involve line dancing.

Windsor II Playset

My son recently turned one so we wanted to get him a playset similar to the one he has at daycare. He enjoys being outside and loves to swing in the swing there so it was an easy choice for a big gift.

The wife and I went to Toys R Us, saw their selection of playsets, and decided on the Windsor II by Adventure Playsets. A new model was coming out so we ended up getting roughly 40% off the initial price. Sweet! It's cedar, 12 feet high, 16 feet long and much nicer than my first apartment.

In case you have never assembled one of these, here are some tips:

1. You will need a very, very good friend to help you with the assembly. Barring that, get a friend that you don't mind losing. Do not use your neighbor or spouse because this is going to go badly and you will never hear the end of it.

2. The guy who sold you the kit told you it should take you and a buddy about 8 hours to put this together. Remember: he works there and has assembled about a hundred of these. Also, he is a filthy, stinking liar.

3. Make sure before you leave the store you get an affidavit signed in triplicate that you have all the boxes of parts AND they all go to the same kit. Otherwise you will be spending much of the day searching for things that don't necessarily exist and driving back to the store to get the things that do exist, but exist in the store instead of your driveway because they forgot to load a box onto your truck.

4. Now that you (theoretically) have all the parts, get on your computer and print out the instruction manual because the one that came in the box is not for the kit you have. This is a 67Meg, 40-page PDF, so why not take a 30 minute break while your $50 inkjet printer deals with this.

5. Finish your break and unjam the printer because it failed in the middle of page 3. Good thing, too, because the first two pages were blank since you needed a new ink cartridge anyway. Insert the new cartridge and resume printing.

6. Open the 6 huge boxes of parts and marvel at the hundreds of similar yet not quite identical pieces of completely unlabeled wood. This might be a good time to fetch the 5 sheets of instruction manual that have printed and load more paper in the printer because nobody else in the damn house remembers to fill the damn paper tray ever.

7. Open the box with the hardware. Question the wisdom, motivation, and parentage of the designers of the kit, regarding their need to use 12 different lengths of wood screw for a single project.

8. Using the freshly printed manual, attempt to sort and stack the wooden parts by type. A space about the size and flatness of an abandoned ice rink should do nicely. Unless you are Jay Leno, your garage is too small.

9. Proceed to Step 1 of the manual. Since you can't do number 8 above and none of the pieces are labeled (and you thought this was going to be like assembling that entertainment center you did a few years back, didn't you?) locating these pieces will take 30 expletive-filled-I-told-you-I-just-looked-through-that-box minutes.

10. Are you sure you have the right pieces? Are you really sure? I'm just sayin', because some of the parts differ only by 1/4 of an inch in length or by the location of a screw hole. Discover you have the wrong pieces and search some more for the right ones.

11. Make sure you have 3 or 4 tape measures. They won't help because they will all be misplaced almost immediately, but at least it increases the odds that you will stumble upon them during a future step or discover them with the lawnmower later.

12. Please tell me you have a cordless drill with multiple batteries and a screwdriver attachment. If you don't, the best thing you can do right now is just commit seppuku with your Phillips to avoid the torture of mounting over 1,000 woodscrews by hand.

13. About 20 hours into the project (about halfway) gage the mood of your friend. Tense but polite silence or the occasional muttered obscenity are both perfectly normal at this point, but try to avoid eye contact just in case you are closer to their breaking point than you think.

14. Did you know a piece of lumber that is called out as 1" x 4" x 48" actually measures 3/4"x 3 1/2"x 48" for arcane sawmill reasons? No? You should, because everyone else in the whole wide world does, apparently. Also, they know that 5/4 actually means 1 inch. Phone your father about this critical gap in your man-knowledge while you disassemble the affected parts of the playhouse.

15. About 30 hours into the project, get tired of pre-drilling hundreds and hundreds of holes and adjusting factory mis-cut boards with the table saw. Have a philosophical discussion with your buddy (assuming he/she is still there) covering topics such as "In this crazy world, who can say what is truly load-bearing and what is only kind of load-bearing?" and "Safety? Bah. In our day, playsets were designed to actively maim children, and we turned out just fine."

16. Now that the main structure is done, assemble the slide. At this point you will have run out of swear words just when you need them the most, so you will have to improvise. Any sort of gibberish will do as long as you go loud and guttural and primal enough to worry the neighbor's dogs.

There! All done! It looks great, it is really solid, but it is just another random big thing in the landscape to a one-year-old, isn't it? Oh, sure, he points at it and says "dis!" but he might be saying anything at all from "What is this new thing?" to "I'm worried the floor joists are not up to code."

But I choose to think he is saying "Thanks, dad!" and that totally makes the effort worthwhile.

Welcome!

Welcome to The 36th Lock! It's been a while since I've written anything so I guess the best way to start is just to start.

I used to run a website called RustyRedRock that was part blog, part forum, and part old-school site. It had a puzzle for charity, my then 6-year-old nephew's stock picks, 1980's movie haiku, polls, some product reviews, ads, and a lot of other stuff.

It started off fun, then eventually became so complicated and time-consuming to maintain that it caused the fun-to-work ratio to scream well past the point-of-diminishing-returns while laughing and making rude hand gestures.

But that's me all over, really.

Whenever I take on a project I have nothing but the most innocent intentions. They all start off the same - "I think I will build a simple whatevertheheck". But before the neurons that thought that thought even have time to recover from their effort, the idea has magically blossomed into a triple-deckered, super-sized, and Bedazzled extravaganza that is a monument to wishful thinking, poor planning, and borderline competence. You know - the type of scheme that would work out if only there were 30 hours in a day, if you and your six like-minded clones were all going to live to be 300 years old, and if there weren't so many darn squirrels out there to distract you.

Oh, don't get me wrong. For the projects I actually start that don't "die in committee", even pundits agree I finish them and finish them well. It's just that I tend to swing for the fences when it is most prudent to just make contact with the darn ball - even a base hit would be perfectly fine. But no. Ol' Casey at the Bat here not only strikes out, he wrenches the hell out of his back and needs to be helped off the field by less-than-sympathetic onlookers... Only to do the same exact thing the very next chance he gets.

However, in my defense, I am not alone. I know at least two others that have this very same... ummm... skill. It's a good thing we are as geographically separated as we are because it is harder to join forces this way. Individually, our half-baked schemes leave the garage a mess and might result in mild embarrassment. The half-baked schemes we would undertake if we were to ever join forces would definitely make headlines around the world. Headlines like "Wives Rightfully Divorce East-Coast-Wrecking Morons".

I know it. My friends know it. We all know it. But whoever said "And knowing is half the battle" had absolutely no idea what they are talking about.

You see, merely knowing something about oneself is useless if you don't consider it a problem. And, personally, I would rather be the type of person that swings for the fences all the time instead of constantly playing it safe.

Cuz when you finally do make contact it's pretty damn sweet.

Again, welcome! Thanks for stopping by. I will be sprucing the place up as time permits so expect a lot of changes "soon".