Can It Get Any Worse?

Well yes, it can get much, much worse, but there are a few things piling up that just make life a little less enjoyable.

First, I went to church last night (uhh, that didn't come out right - please don't misunderstand me, church does not make my life less enjoyable) for the first time in quite a while. Sunday nights have been hectic lately, and I just haven't had the gumption to get up and go. When I got there, I looked through the bulletin and found out that the Music Director's position will be cut because of lack of funds. This really, truly bums me out. I should back up a bit. The church I've been attending for nearly 2 years is Mercy Seat Lutheran Church in NE Minneapolis. We meet on Sunday nights because we're using a different congregation's space. Two of the pastors were in school with me when I was at Luther Seminary, an they are really cool people although one of them has since left Mercy Seat on a medical leave. The church is kind of artsy, which normally doesn't do anything for me. What really attracted me to the church was their creation of a jazz liturgy. The soon-to-be-ex-music-director Jon Pemberton is well connected in the local jazz community. Every week he would assemble a remarkable group of musicians that would play anything from Dixieland to Free Jazz. I'll admit that hearing jazz in church was a bit jarring at first, but I've really grown to love the liturgies he wrote. I'm really going to miss the music. There are other great things about the church. Kae and Mark's preaching is consistently thoughtful, poetic, funny, and true to the Lutheran tradition, it always has the euangelion at its center. They claim to be "critically orthodox," which I appreciate very much. This is not a namby-pamby, feel good about yourself church. Nor is it a church that reduces the Gospel to a left wing political agenda. Jesus is not just a nice teacher and example, but the Word Incarnate come to save us from ourselves. I always leave church humbled but feeling well fed and taken care of.

Second, I just discovered that one of my favorite local bloggers, Smithers Minneapolis, is giving up blogging. He wrote about cycling, politics, family and the pumpkin loaf at Starbucks. Very smart and funny. Even the commentators on his posts made me laugh out loud. Sigh, no more. I suppose I'll keep doing it as long as I'm working here and have all this time on my hands, but there is no guarantee that I'll be either smart or funny like Smithers.

Third, on the way to work this morning I noticed that the City of Maplewood has done an utterly craptastic job of plowing the streets. Even worse than Minneapolis. This is the last mile of my commute to work, and the sides of the streets look unridable. It may be a long time before I bike to work again.

In other news, The Madster went to her first karate session with the big folks, 13 years and up. She was the youngest one there, obviously, and the only female. She was quite intimidated and didn't want to mix it up with these guys. I insisted. It was quite an intense workout and there was some practice sparring. She was pooped when she was finished, but she had a big smile on her face.

TOYH has scheduled her nursing boards test and is now busy studying for that. Not much movement on the job front. There is one promising lead right now.

Christmas Is Almost Over Now

One family gathering left to attend. TOYH's family is all getting together tomorrow at EG and DM's place. Kent, Ross and their families are in from Shanghai and Denver respectively.

On Christmas Eve, Evil Grandmother and the Dreadful Man came over for Clam Chowdah, assorted finger foods and conversation. On Christmas day, we spent the early morning opening up presents. Nothing spectacular. Madster and 'Nika got the first two seasons of "I Love Lucy" on DVD. To me, it's more entertaining to watch The Madster watch Lucy than it is to watch Lucy herself. Madster sits on the edge of her seat, mouth open in a smile, nose crinkled up, waiting in eager expectation for Lucy's next pratfall or the denouement of one of her harebrained schemes. Lucy rarely disappoints and Madster ends up cackling at every episode. I received the 1st season of "30 Rock" and end up cackling at that much in the same way Madster laughs at Lucy.

Later on Christmas morning our old next door neighbors, Sue and Sherry, came over for brunch. We spent a few hours catching up and watching a warrant being served on one of the tenants next door in Mabel's old house. Merry Christmas! You're going to jail! I have no idea what he was arrested for, it was not very dramatic. Plainclothes cop comes up and gets no answer at the front door, leaves. Plainclothes comes back with two uniform cops, they collar their man and leave. No beat downs. No weeping and wailing. I felt kinda bad for the cops. I suppose the only thing more depressing than arresting someone on Christmas Day is to be arrested on Christmas Day.

Early in the afternoon we headed up to Cambridge for my family's Christmas celebration, complete with ham and lasagna and borscht. Mmmmm. I spent far too long talking about prostates with Opa. That type of conversation really makes me feel like an old man, although I was talking about other people's prostates, not my own. I can safely say that the conversation did not fill me with Christmas spirit. The Christmas spirit did visit the Holm household though. Last week I read about a play that was being performed somewhere in the metro. It tells the story of the Allied and the German troops laying down their arms on Christmas Day in 1917(?). They visited each others trenches, sang with each other and shared food. For one day, the grunts doing the fighting and dying quit fighting and dying. In the same way, there was no talk of "White Christmas" or "It's a Wonderful Life" the whole time we were up in Cambridge. Our little Christmas miracle.

Yesterday, there was a big sledding, or sliding, or sleigh riding (as the Dreadful Man calls it - must be a Wyoming thing) party with as many of the cousins as we could gather. KyKy skipped out because she looked like death warmed over. We had a lot of fun. We went to Como Park where there are some pretty steep hills in the NW corner. The old farts went down the hill a few times, except for Ross of course, who went down a bunch of times. We tried the mass start with anywhere from 18 to 20 people. Going down single file with each person holding on to the feet of the person behind them didn't really work. But on the last conga line like attempt, the line kept together all the way to the jump that no one wanted to try out. It was very funny watching the whole line of about a dozen or so kids (plus Ross) hit the jump perfectly and wipe out.

Today was the first day back to work for me since last Friday (where did you think I found the time to write this?). We'll leave early for a company lunch, hopefully Famous Dave's. Back to work on Monday for a couple of end-of-year housekeeping things. After New Year's Day it'll be time to hunker down for the winter. We picked up another 4 inches of snow on Christmas day so the streets are pretty sloppy and still not fit for bike commuting for me. Lots of early snow makes things pretty for Christmas, but it also makes winter seem to drag on and on. The one post-holiday consolation for me is that the days are now getting longer.

A Correction

In Sunday's edition of "Whaddup With Us" it was reported that "White Christmas" had won a People's Choice award. This is incorrect. The statement should have read, "'White Christmas' has not been acknowledged by AFI nor has it won any awards, even a crappy People's Choice award." We regret the error.

Socks And Underpants

These were the thoughtful gifts I received from my family. I'm not sure what they are trying to say, but I'm taking it as a general approval of my wardrobe since what they gave to me is covered up by other pieces of clothing. We spent the morning lazing about the house, and then at noon we left to go meet Kent and Anne and the girls at Pepito's for brunch. Ahhh Pepito's Sunday brunch. My arteries clench up just thinking about it. After brunch, we adjourned to K & A's place in St Louise Park for cheesecake. Kent and I sat around watching football while the ladies did, well, whatever ladies do. Kent seemed really interested in watching the Patriots squish the Dolphins. I ever being the polite guest feigned interest in the game. It would have been better if the sound was turned off so I didn't have to constantly be reminded by Jim Nance and Phil Simms that the New England Patriots are truly gods walking among us. We left KyKy and The Madster behind as they were attending the ballet with their cousins. Nutcracker at the State Theater if I'm not mistaken. The rest of us uncultured slobs piled in Crapmobile and fought our way home through the snow. 3-4 inches worth it appears. No work for me tomorrow, so I get to pull out the snowblower and clean up around the place.

People Who Think "White Christmas" Is The Best Christmas Movie Make Me Laugh

You know why? According to my blog it just won the People's Choice award! This movie deservedly takes its place alongside other People's Choice winners such as NSync, Drew Carey, and "Two And A Half Men." I say it fits right in with those winners in terms of quality.

"It's A Wonderful Life" on the other hand is number 20 on the American Film Institute's top 100 films of all time. Let me repeat - OF ALL TIME. It is also number 1, numero uno, top dawg on AFI's list of most inspirational films.

"White Christmas" could not be found on any AFI list, not even the Top 25 Greatest Movie Musicals. It was beat out by such greats as "The Band Wagon" from 1953.

Enjoy your People's Choice award!

Land of Biking Enchantment - Then I Get Crabby

Today was the one Saturday of the month where 'Nika and The Madster did not need to be at karate. This means it's the one Saturday I get to sneak down to the far reaches of S. Mpls to Hiawatha Cyclery to go on their Saturday morning ride. On any given Saturday, the ride is populated by a bunch of middle-aged men (except for Jim T, who hasn't quite met the middle-age threshold) who are witty, wonderful conversationalists that have a love, even a passion, for biking. The rides entail meeting at HC, riding to a coffee shop for treats and conversation, then riding back to the HC - flapping your jaws the whole time. (Neil - Lunatic Biker, VelociPete and of course Mellow Velo were on the ride this a.m.) Anyway, I got up early to be able to get to the ride. The weather dorks had predicted snow overnight, and they didn't lie. There was enough snow so that the plows of Mpls were out scraping the main arteries before I rolled out of bed. I was afraid that the snow would be too deep, and the ride would not happen. I pulled myself out of bed, got dressed and hoped for the best. I was not disappointed. The ride down to Hiawatha Cyclery would fall short of the designation "magical," but it was damn close. When I left home, the snow was not too deep and it was the heavy, wet kind, totaling about an inch or maybe an inch and a half. The winter beater with the studded tires ate that crap up with no problem. What was so enchanting about the ride was the fact that it was early enough for there to be virtually no traffic, all the while the snow was falling in large wet flakes. And it was warm, (right around 32F) with no wind. The combination of no wind and heavy wet snow left the trees and shrubs flocked with a white loveliness. It was a very enjoyable ride down to HC except for the fact that my glasses fogged up and were pelted with snowflakes, so I was reduced to putting my head down and looking over the top of my glasses so I could see where I was going. I'm fairly sure that without my glasses I approach the threshold of legal blindness, so looking over the top of my glasses only gives me a slight advantage to looking through the mess that was on them. I got to the ride early, so I was able to take in the quiet of the snow falling illuminated by the streetlights, which happens to be one of my favorite ways of enjoying a snowfall in the city. The ride itself was nothing special. We decided to simply go to Melo-Glaze, possibly the greatest doughnut place on earth, to drink coffee and eat treats. We did, and afterwards, we made our way back to HC. The ride home from the shop was a bit dicey. The plows had come through, pushing all the slushy snow to the side of the road where bikers ride. I stayed on the bike paths and side streets to avoid the high traffic areas. The temperature had dropped about 8 degrees from the time I had left the house, so the side streets were starting to resemble skating rinks. Blech.

Now the crabby part. 'Nika's cousin Gabby had a birthday party today, and it was celebrated at one of those bear-building stores found in malls all across this land. 'Nika and I left early since I thought that the combination of weather and traffic (this being the last Saturday before X-mas) would slow us down considerably. I was wrong. We were there about 20 minutes before the start of the party, and as it turns out, Auntie Clary was 20 minutes late. Yipeee!!!! I get to spend three quarters of an hour in a temple of consumerism doing absolutely nothing but waiting!!!! Now normally I try to think the best of folks and not judge people by their appearance. But to be perfectly honest, every person I saw today at Rosedale was ugly. Nay fugly. It was all perception and context though. I realize that most of the herd today was out buying X-mas presents for someone other than themselves, but I always associate malls with aimless wandering to spend money on crap that is not really needed. It is a totally selfish, solopsistic purchase. (It occurred to me today that the phrase "That is sooooo cute on you," is uttered dozens, maybe even hundreds of times during the day at any given mall) These benighted consumers are bored and think that the cure for boredom is shopping (Ride your damn bikes and save some money fer crying out loud. What a great way to cure boredom!) and that, in my opinion, makes a person ugly, no matter how physically attractive they may be.

I escaped from the mall, the whole the way home feeling like I need to take a shower because of my presence there. When I get home, TOYH asks if I can run to the store for a couple of things. Grrrrrrr. All I want to do is come home, forget about having been to a mall, and do the crossword puzzle in the paper. But no, TOYH needs a pound and a half of flax seed for Christmas present for Opa. (Ha! Bet you can't figure out what's going on with that) She also needs a bum-jug of burgundy wine. This development, as it turns out, will brighten my day considerably. I set to my appointed tasks, cursing all the way. When I get home, I find out that the wine is for making mulled wine. This, in and of itself, is not significant. But given the recent flame war in the comment section over the superiority of "It's A Wonderful Life" vs. "White Christmas," it becomes crucially important in the game of one-upsmanship I've been playing with my sisters. I am totally vindicated and proven right in the petty, nonsensical, invalid, unprovable argument over which movie is better. The crowning achievement, the piece-de-resistance, the in your face, conclusion to this dispute is that my sister Tracy, who defends "White Christmas," asked TOYH to bring mulled wine to our family Christmas celebration. Mulled wine is what Clarence the Angel in "It's A Wonderful Life" orders at Nick's bar. Ha. She's asking for something that a main character orders and therefore tacitly acknowledges the superiority of my movie. Bwahahahahahaha. I win simply because I make the most ridiculous argument in the history of humankind to win my point.

Merry Christmas

And tomorrow is my birthday.

Edit - If you want to refer to the dispute about Christmas movies and my complete and total victory, see the post "Man It Was Cold"

Bear With Me, This Will Be A Long One

I've been meaning to write about something work related for a while now, but the timing hasn't been right. It's time.

I need another job.

It's not that I don't like my job here at Test Equipment World Domination Headquarters, nor is it that Jon and I don't get along. It's just that there is hardly anything for me to do here anymore.

When this enterprise started up in March of '06, there was plenty to do. Jon and I had to do some remodeling work on the space being leased. We had to go out and purchase equipment, furniture, supplies etc. I had to learn how to use the accounting software for the business. All that was pretty fun for me, especially spending someone elses money on stuff I would be using. Early on after we started up, Jon placed a winning bid on a ton of test equipment from one of the big dealers. Actually, it was probably more than a ton. I do know it was 6 pallets worth of stuff. All of those units needed to be entered kept track of in some way shape or form on the computer. While doing that, I continued to figure out how to use our accounting software - entering in customers and vendors, trying to get a handle on how to do payroll accurately. I also started learning more about selling on eBay, preparing high value shipments for international delivery and getting my head wrapped around a little bit of accounting/bookkeeping. I was usually busy at work.

I suppose it was about a year ago that things started to slow down for me. Transactions became routine. Multiple listings on eBay? No problem. International shipment going to Australia needing a Commercial Invoice and Shipper's Export Declaration? I can do that in my sleep. Work around Quickbooks' stupid design that does not let us prepay for purchases without marking them as received before they physically arrive? Yawn. Things were getting quite easy for me and the amount of real work I was doing every day was gradually decreasing while my time spent reading (and writing) blogs was increasing. Jon's work, on the other hand, was not decreasing. He's in charge of buying, pricing, schmoozing dealers and customers, and fixing broken equipment. I'm here to record his activity.

As time wore on, it was becoming clear to me that I have absolutely no interest in learning the biz of test equipment. None. Zip. I still don't know what Vector Network Analyzers or S-Parameter Test Sets do, nor do I care frankly. Jon knows people who are successful dealers in test equipment who are just as clueless as me, but they know sales and how to work a deal, something else I'm not at all interested in. In the end, it's probably easier for Jon to keep all the wheeling and dealing in his head, rather than running into potential problems where two of us would promise different customers the same unit.

For a few months now I've been mulling over the idea of going down to part time here and picking up another job. I've gone so far as talking to Jamie at Sunrise Cyclery about working for him on a part time basis. Truthfully, I am an anchor on the company bottom line here. I get paid for full time work and the company pays half my health insurance costs. It's not a king's ransom by any stretch of the imagination, but it is certainly enough that I feel pretty guilty drawing this amount of pay and benefits for sitting on my arse. As I envisioned it, I would propose to Jon going down to part time when TOYH got a job with benefits. That way I could get paid for actual work done and not have the company shell out money for my health insurance.

Jon brought this same topic up in a conversation just this week, so we began talking about when and how this could take place. We do have one huge problem to deal with though. Jon has stage IV prostate cancer. He was diagnosed a little over a month ago. He's doing fine now, responding well to early therapy and is now weighing options for more radical treatments. Faced with his own mortality, Jon is re-evaluating what he wants to do with the business. Growing it is pretty much out of the question, not just because of the illness, but because after over 20 years of doing this, Jon is getting tired of it. Maintaining what we're doing now is an option, but it would be good to cut some overhead, namely get me down to part time. A third option would be to shrink it to the size where Jon could run it out of a much smaller space or maybe even his home. Option 3 appears to be unlikely. Here's why. Our company's health insurance plan with Health Partners is set up for small businesses with more than one employee. If the company goes down to one insured employee the policy would be cancelled because it is set up especially for two or more enrollees. What we don't know yet is whether there is portability for Jon to continue with the Health Partners, just under a different plan that he would pay for out of pocket. If Jon can keep getting insurance from HP, then we've got options. If he can't, then I need to keep working here until he hires someone else, or to put it delicately, Jon doesn't need insurance any more. Switching to another insurer would be impossible because of Jon's "pre-existing condition."

Are there really people saying that we still have the best health care in the world? If there are, they are full of shit. Full. Of. It. Not only are there, what, 53 million people without insurance in this country, there are people like me and Jon whose decisions about where they would work are dictated by health insurance. Not pay. Not interest or passion. Not ability. Not location. Fucking health insurance. And all the bastards who make policy decisions about a national health plan or those who decide who is insurable in our screwed up privatized system are never ever faced with these kinds of decisions on a personal level. They will always have plenty of health coverage. And please don't say anything about how awful "socialized medicine" is. If you think it's so horrific, don't you dare sign up for Medicare when you reach that age. Why would you want to stain your golden years by participating in a system that is so ruinous to the American way of life?

Merry Christmas

More Things Fall Apart

The Taurus, not getting as much attention as Crapmobile, decided to make a scene. On my way to work the thumping from the front end got so bad that I just drove to Perry's and left it with him. Took the bus the rest of the way to work. I'm secretly hoping that he'll tell me that it's just not worth it to fix the beast and we should just put a bullet in it. It would be a great excuse to go down to being a one car family.

On a happier note, KyKy's concert last night was excellent. 20 different pieces by 15 different combinations of choirs, wind ensembles and orchestras. It was organized incredibly well so there wasn't much waiting between pieces for the next group to set up. KyKy's orchestra sounded really good playing "Sugar Plum Faries" from Nutcracker. To me though, the highlight of the night was the massed choir singing Leonard Cohen's "Anthem." They printed the lyrics in the program, and it was so fitting, given the times we live in. If I can find that program, I'll post the lyrics. It was a good thing the concert was held in the Basilica, it was filled up front to back. It's not a huge space, but just big enough for this event. All those people never would have fit in Southwest's auditorium. Unfortunately, the accoustics were only ok. We could hear everything, but her earlier concert at SW was much easier to listen to.

Update Perry just called to say that it was the right front bearing and that he fixed it already. Curses. We remain a two car family cuz I'm too chicken to simply do the deed and go down to one.

UPS just delivered a box of shortbread cookies from one of our vendors. It only took $80,000 of purchases on our part to earn this lovely gift.

Things Fall Apart The Center Cannot Hold

TOYH is taking the Crapmobile into Perry's for a going over. What's wrong? Lessee... Windshield wipers stuck in permanent, hillbilly-looking "up" position. Broken tail light lens. (Honestly, this is the third one we've replaced. I really believe there is a minivan tail light vigilante roaming south Mpls. Ours isn't the only one I've seen smashed. I have no other explanation.) Power door locks do not work. Oil needs to be changed. I'm sure there are other things, and when TOYH made the appointment for the repairs, Perry said he'd just write down "crappy van" on the work order. Bingo.

My 10 year old Taurus still runs, but it's making it's cold weather complaints. Some, but not all cold mornings there is a whining belt or something coming from under the hood. It's not an awful screech like you hear on most cars when they start up cold. It's truly a whine that doesn't easily go away even when the engine warms up. The cold weather thumping from the front end has also returned. I first noticed it last winter. It is most pronounced when my foot is off the accelerator and not on the brake. In other words when I'm coasting. As soon as I step on the gas or the brake, the sound pretty much disappears. It quit making the noise over the summer but now it's back. Maybe I should call Car Talk so they can call me a moron for not taking it in to Perry to have it looked at. I really don't like automobiles. I'm glad for the ones we have - they're paid for - but it seems like you either limp along getting nickeled and dimed to keep them running or you spend a ton of money to buy new or almost new.

I find the whole car culture rather depressing. It's like people need a living room on wheels because they spend so much time in their vehicles. I see the traffic reports on the morning news, and I just shudder. Since people have to have their 4 acres and a mule, they live miles and miles away from work and as a result 5 days a week twice a day, they sit in traffic in their $25,000, depreciating-every-day-so-you'll-never-get-your-money-back, living rooms. It doesn't make sense to me. Spend money on a house far away from everything because far away land is more affordable, but then all the money you save is eaten up in having to buy a comfortable vehicle because you live so far away and sitting in traffic to get to your far away home just isn't worth it unless you're sitting in your rolling living room. The money part may end up being a zero sum game, but now it's 10-15 hours a week lost to commuting. Blech.

KyKy has been complaining that her room is cold. Baby. I did take a look at the boiler downstairs and the pressure was pretty low. I called the Dreadful Man, since he has some kind of provisional boiler license to run the boilers at church. He told me to release the pressure valve coming from the overflow tank and then fill the system back up to 20 psi. When I released the pressure valve, I got a few gallons of rusty, nasty smelling runoff from the tank. It kept dripping for an hour or so, so I did it again. Same result. It ended up dripping all night into a bucket since our ancient house does not have a floor drain to run a hose to. It may be that the pressure release valve is gummed up and will not seat properly, thus the drip. I sure hope not. I don't want to call in someone to fix this at great expense, nor do I want to have to empty buckets of nasty smelling water for the rest of my life. Maybe it'll just go away, or maybe my basement is flooded right now. Sigh. The radiators do feel warmer though.

KyKy has a concert tonight. I think they're calling it a Holiday Concert, but it's being held at the Basilica. Wrap your head around that one.

We Broke Out The Bubbly

Hit the 5000 mile mark today. If you're at all interested, see if this address works

2007 Bike Mileage

This is a spreadsheet that I used to keep track of my miles. Is it exact? No. I didn't really start tracking things until February, so January was pretty much a guess. That month included a couple of commutes and a couple of rides with the Nerds on Bikes club, (aka Twin Cities Bicycling Club) so I simply made a guess. So did I really do 5000? Well, there are bunches of little rides that did not get recorded, and if I wanted to be all jerky about it, I could include a couple-o-hundred miles on the bike ride to nowhere, riding on the trainer in the basement. Highlights include July 29th, the day I did my first century ride. That was the ride where I drafted off of Neil most of the way. Thanks again, man. I knew it was going to be close, so I was afraid I was going to have to ride around the block a few times when I got home to make that 100, but my odometer really did read 100 miles when I made it there. The whopping 2.1 miles on December 1 was the truncated TCBC ride during our first snowstorm of the season. April 13 was the day I took delivery on the SS Deathstar and about 3700 of the total were put on that bike. I don't have the exact figures here, but somewhere between 2000 and 2500 miles of the total was my commute to and from work. Basically any time a 27 is entered, that's a commute. That means the Taurus has 171,000 miles on it instead of 173,000. Anyhooo... we had an extra bottle of champagne left over from TOYH's finishing up school, so we popped the cork on it. Okay, okay, it was cheap Asti Spumante and not real champagne. Martini & Rossi anyone? Cheers to me.

I Got Nuthin

I've been preoccupied with the Christmas movie smackdown in the previous thread.

Man Was It Cold

I started the weekend with 4943 miles logged this year. Since commuting is still pretty much out of the question, I'm reduced to being a weekend warrior on the bike. Saturday, I went out on a TCBC club ride. It was slow an cold, about 6 degrees the whole time we were out there. We basically stuck to the paths around Mpls. There was one rider who was very slow, so a couple of us just took off at a whopping 13 mph. After we'd pull way ahead, we'd either double back, find a parking lot to ride in circles, or just stand around and wait. Ended up doing 21 miles that day. When I got home, I hopped in the shower to warm up. I had to hop right out again. My toes were so cold that I couldn't stand in the shower for more than a couple of minutes without excruciating pain. I was wondering if I had frostbite. When I had peeled my socks off, my toes were absolutely pale and numb like each had been shot up with Novocain. When I got out of the shower they were a frighteningly mottled purple. They recovered, but it took me a while to warm up. Sunday was a solo ride, except I rode 31 miles. (Do the math, 5 miles to go until 5000) Greenway to the river, West River Road paths to the lakes, lakes to Hopkins via SW trail, Hopkins back to Mpls via Cedar Lake trail. I probably should have ridden with someone or at least taken my phone with me. It's pretty lonely on the trails west of the city when it's this cold, and there are some stretches where a walk to get help would be quite a hike. At mile 26 my feet were soooo cold and I was sooo tired. Head down, power through. When I got home I was smart enough to take my shoes off and warm my feet up by one of the radiators. Then I hopped in the shower, and stayed in there for quite a while, so long, in fact, that half an hour after I got out, KyKy was asking me why there wasn't any hot water for her bath.

We finally picked up the Christmas tree on Saturday night. Madster was at a sleep over, KyKy was visiting a friend and TOYH was cooking. So it was just the little Christmas elf, 'Nika, and me who went to Home Depot to get the tree. We've been going there for the past few years because they have decent trees for a good price. We got there about 6 o'clock and it must have been about zero degrees, and I was still chilled to the core from my bike ride. Normally picking out trees is an ordeal. We pull one out of the pile, smack it on the ground so the branches fall down in place to see if it is misshapen, and then move on to the next tree. After we pick one out, they kindly cut off a few inches from the trunk, and bale it up in netting to make it easier to carry. Then we tie it to the top of the crapmobile and go on our merry way. It was so cold Saturday night that the branches of all the trees were frozen in the "up" position, so we couldn't see if the tree was nicely shaped or could be used as a stand-in on "A Charlie Brown Christmas." We grabbed one that was the right height, and the guy at the store cut off the bottom few inches of the trunk. There was no need to wrap the thing in netting since it was frozen in place like an unfurled evergreen umbrella. Because it was just the two of us, I shoved the blasted thing inside the van to forgo the 15 minutes of tying down and securing it to the roof. When we got home, I put it on the porch and told the kids if they want it put up that night, they'd have to do it themselves. No takers. It did get put up on Sunday, and it looks pretty nice. Decorations tonight.

Sunday was the last swimming event of the year, the banquet. It was very nice. Lots of people there. TOYH and I ended up sitting with the moms of two of the captains and had a nice little chat with them. The captains gave out goofy awards to all the swimmers. KyKy got the 13 going on 30 award, since she doesn't act like a teenager. Very perceptive on the part of the captains, I thought.

Stoopid Mpls

So on Tuesday, we get about 3 inches of snow, with the threat of a couple more inches on Thursday. The city did not declare a snow emergency Tuesday night, I'm thinking, because they thought they could roll up both snowfalls into one big plowing orgy on Thursday. Well the snow did not really show up for us on Thursday and the city decided not to call a snow emergency. Idiots. Now the bike lanes are not clear, and the side streets are all rutted and half-plowed. This will greatly curtail my bike commuting, since I don't want to navigate this stuff in the dark during rush hour. On a related stupid is as stupid does note, the Minneapolis Park Board apparently is going to charge the users of the off road trails in Theo Wirth Park a $25.00 fee for a yearly pass. These trails have been free up to now. What is annoying the off road community is the fact that it was off road cyclists, with the blessing of the Park Board no less, who created these trails. People had been bombing around the Park, tearing things up willy-nilly until a group of cyclists developed a sustainable trail system (minimizing erosion) and set down some rules for use (don't ride on the trails after a rain when they're muddy). Now in thanks for the thousands of volunteer hours, the Park Board is going to make 'em pay. Morons.

In other news, tonight is TOYH's big night. In an ancient, secretive nursing ritual whose origins are lost in the mists of time, she's going to get poked....er pinned. I'm all excited to see if they learn a secret handshake, and more importantly if she's going to start wearing one of those cute little nursing hats like Dixie did on that old timey teevee show "Emergency!" (Ahh Johnny and Roy, the odd couple of the paramedic world) The whole family is going to the ceremony to whoop it up. They are going to have treats but no beer unfortunately, even though it's a Catholic School. So drop TOYH a line to tell her she did a damn fine job getting through school. Cuz she did. We're all proud of her.

Guess What?

More snow for tomorrow's afternoon commute. 1-3 inches predicted. Jeff, just don't bother going into work, okay? (See previous post comment section) I packed it in at about 4 o'clock yesterday, and just before I left, I took a look at MDOT's metro traffic page. The interstates I use to get home, 35E and 94, looked relatively free-flowing, so I hopped on thinking that I might be home in 45 minutes or an hour tops. Wrong. Stop and go the whole way. 94 the opposite direction was worse, as Jeff can tell you. I heard on the radio that traffic was backed up from Mounds Blvd to Broadway. That means it was jammed up from downtown St. Paul all the way to the north side of Minneapolis. Ish.

Today is clear and bright and cold. Tonight is "Book Club" night, so I'll pedal on over on the winter beater. One day I'm going to try winter riding on the fixie but I'm too lazy to take it off the trainer for right now. Man that's lazy. In the "Club" we've been reading "Christ," by Jack Miles. Miles is a ex-Jesuit, Ancient Near East scholar who has written a couple of books about God by reading the Bible as a literary critic, not as a theologian or biblical scholar. The books are pretty dense, but endlessly fascinating. He doesn't ignore the orthodox Christian understanding of God, it's that he just he leaves those issues in the background to concentrate on how the story is told. It's amazing to me that someone who has been steeped in the traditional ways of understanding the Bible can step back and write about it from a literary perspective. Take, for example, Moses encountering God in the burning bush. Miles' take is that God has yet to name himself to humanity. In meeting Moses in the burning bush God successively tells Moses that He should be called "I am who I am," "I AM," and "Jehovah." (Exodus 3:14,15) Miles doesn't get hung up on where the names come from, the old Jahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, Priestly debate, or how the editor put these verses together. He is only concerned with the final "edition" of the text. Three names in two verses. I've read that section of scripture probably dozens of times and didn't think twice about the different names. After reading Miles on this passage, it's almost if God is saying something like, "Call me Joseph. Wait, call me Joe. Ahh whatever, just call me Dude." If you are concerned with scriptural inerrancy or are tied to an Augustinian view of God - the timeless deity, unmoved and unchanged and all that - don't bother reading Miles' books. They'll just make you mad, and that's not the point. If you want to see God portrayed in ways that you've never seen before, by all means give his books a try.

More Snow

I get to look out my window at work and see the snow fall. It's purty. They're saying 3-5 more inches, I'm thinking it'll be on the low side of that. The streets are going to continue to be messy, which will curtail my commuting by bike. I just don't feel like riding in the dark on slippery streets alongside drivers who have forgotten how to drive on snow. Since I'm not able to ride outside much lately, I've set the trainer up in the basement. Bleh. No matter how cold it is down there, I end up drenched in sweat after a few minutes of spinning, and I'm not spinning that hard. I hooked up a crappy little odometer and figured I did about 9 miles in half an hour. I'm doing it on the fixed gear, so there's no real rest, just pedalling for however long I can do it without going crazy.

The Christmas decorations are going up in the Stocking household. There has been constant nagging by the younger two to get this done. On Sunday morning, while I was trying to enjoy my coffee and the paper, there was a tremendous scraping noise coming from the basement. It was 'Nika dragging the big plastic bins of Christmas crap across the floor to the stairs. Kinda like the dog smacking his food dish around when we are late feeding him. Soooo, Sunday the decorations started going up, sans tree, since neither TOYH or I felt like driving around in the aftermath of the snowstorm. After today's snow, we're not going out tree-buying tonight either. There was the usual cursing by TOYH because half the lights she has strung on the fake garlands were "burned out." Then they'd pop on. Then they're off. Last year we just had a half-lit garland. Apparently this holiday obscenity will not be repeated this year, and a whole new string of lights has be applied to the garland. Christmas is saved! The girls put up strings of lights in their rooms. KyKy tried to explain to me that her lights were intermittent, and then there were sparks, and then the lights would come on. Turns out one of those little mini-bulbs broke and there were exposed wires arcing. I know because I touched them and got a shock. I told her to keep her lights unplugged until we replace the bulb.

In the past 5 minutes TOYH called from her trek home from Costco and Jon called me from picking up his son at school to tell me that the roads are terrible. I guess I'm going to leave now and sit in stuck traffic all the way home. Woohoo.

A Disappointment

Our foot of snow is ending up to be about half that. That isn't so disappointing, but the attempted bike ride today was. It was incredibly slippery. The winter beater has fat tires with studs on them, but those really don't make any difference. Riding on the street was treacherous, even with only 4 inches of snow. We have a powder on top of a kind of sleety mix, and the combination is pretty awful. You are constantly correcting the for slipping, which can put you in the middle of the street, not a good thing. There are a couple of schools of thought when it comes to riding in snow. Some people ride skinny road bike tires that cut through the snow. The other option is to go with the 4 inch wide tires on a specially built bike (ahem, a Surly Pugsley with Large Marge rims and Endomorph tires for about $1900.00. If you, faithful reader, win the lottery and can waste money on me, I will gladly take your charity). Oh, well. I'll just wait for the City of Minneapolis to plow the streets and go riding when they're done.

It's funny, I really don't feel like I was prepared for snow. Don't get me wrong, I'm not the kind of person who whines about winter (in fact, I hate those complainers, just move the hell away from here if you don't like the weather). To me there is something spiritual about going through the cold death of winter and being revived by the new life of spring. But today, when I look out the window at the white landscape, I feel like I'm looking at something that just doesn't belong. Maybe I'm in denial. I've been riding bike for a year and 4 months, and even though I rode last winter, I guess I just assumed that the white stuff was not going to factor into my little, insular cycling world. Well, it's here and now, and I have to deal with it.

Speaking of dealing, the Xmas season is upon us, and I don't deal too well with Xmas. Here is what I like about Christmas. 1) Getting together with family is by far and away the best part of the season. 2) "A Charlie Brown Christmas," half hour television special and kick-ass soundtrack. 'Nuff said. 3) Time off from work. That pretty much sums it up, the rest is pretty much crap. Oh, wait - 4) The Christmas tree - with the advent of the soft-needled, good-smelling, needle-retaining Frazier Fir, Christmas trees make my list. But the actual celebration of the birth of God Incarnate .... that has been reduced to an irrelevant footnote.

There is a rule that I have laid down in our household - no Xmas music until Thanksgiving has passed. Well, we are past Thanksgiving and now I'm subjected to the seasonal music. Don't get me wrong, there are some lovely Christmas tunes. It's just that they're 300 years old, and every fading pop music luminary has decided that the way to boost sales is to release an Xmas album of crappy rehashes of these songs. That being said, there are some Christmas albums that I do like. The aforementioned Charlie Brown Christmas. I don't know about Vince Guaraldi but I'm glad Charles Schulz picked him to do the music for this teevee special. Bruce Cockburn, "Christmas." If his version of "O Little Town of Bethlehem" doesn't take your breath away, just count yourself as an indifferent agnostic. By the way, Cockburn wrote the best Christmas song of the 20th Century, maybe of all time (even better than "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer"). It's called, "Cry of a Tiny Babe" and you can find it on his "Nothing But a Burning Light" disk. This song packs so much theological meaning into the Christmas story. It brings tears to my eyes to listen to it. Finally, for pure indulgence, listen to Harry Connick Jr. "When My Heart Finds Christmas." He sings more than one verse of "O Holy Night," which you just don't hear from everybody, and which has some great lines. Unfortunately the production is so over-wrought and dramatic, it comes close to to degenerating into schmalzy dreck. Other than that, there is some fun stuff on that disk. The dude has some talent. Unfortunately for me, our iPod Xmas playlist is filled with a whole lot of stuff that I could care less about. Therefore, when I started this post, I was listening to "Nevermind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols."

One last music related item. If you haven't listened to Mike Doughty's "Haughty Melodic," please, please do so. I am obsessed with that album. Favorite line:

My circus train pulls through the night
Full of lions and trapeze artists
I'm done with elephants and clowns
I want to run away and join the office.

Bring It On

Just got back from the grocery store. It was cloudy when we went in, and it was snowing when we got out. The weather dopes are now saying we may get up to a foot of snow. But the larder is full, there is fresh gas for the snowblower and after my bike ride I can sit in my chair and watch the snow fall while I drink coffee. So come on Mother Nature, do you worst. Well except for an ice storm. That can stay in Iowa.