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You ain't no kind of man if you ain't got land. - Delmar O'Donnel (O Brother, Where Art Thou?)

I am on my way to becoming some kind of man. Anke and I signed a contract to buy a house today. Hooray! We hope to close at the end of January. We'll be located in Bellevue - which is just south of Omaha- near Fontenelle Forest. My commute to work will probably grow from 15 minutes to 20 - 25 minutes. And there is no covenant. I've had this discussion with friends before about how I don't believe in covenants. And it's usually me against everyone else in this, but I believe in personal freedom over property values. I believe in hanging engine blocks from trees . And I now have a tree (see the above picture) to hang one from. Just do me a favor and don't tell Anke about this plan. I'm not quite sure she would understand, and she may attempt to thwart me.
The back yard goes right up to this public hilly foresty land. There should be lots of wild life for nature geeks like me and Anke to enjoy.
The inside is very nice with high vaulted cedar ceilings and an open floor plan. The master bedroom is decent sized, but smaller than we have now. Our current apartment actually has huge bed rooms. The two kid bedrooms are rather small to my eye. But that is ok, because kids are small people. And I won't be the one living in the small room. Oh, and there is a wet bar in the basement. The back of the house is the really cool part. Look at those huge windows! Anke and I are really excited about this house. It will be a bit stark with furnishings in the beginning, but we think we can be happy living here until Corwin gets out of school. So that'll give us plenty of time to decorate. (Photos a borrowed from the real estate listing.)

December

No updates for a while. I've been lazy. What has happened this month?

I've gotten new glasses. Actually two new pairs. We had a lot of money left over from our annual medical flex spending account. Way over budgeted on that. Some day I think I should just get the lasic surgery and have my vision corrected. But the truth is I like glasses. I don't like the part where I wake in the morning and am blind or when they get smudged, which happens all to often with a toddler running around. But I like how I look with them.

I also got a new hair cut. Quite a bit was chopped off. It took a week or so to get used to, but I like it now. In the winter my hair tends to get rather flat with the lack of humidity in the air. I'll grow it out a bit when summer rolls around again. On the bright side, I think I look a good five years younger.

I got to see The Who on December 7. Maurice emailed me that he had been given four tickets to the show by his consulting firm. The Pretenders opened for them, and Chrissie Hynde can still rock pretty well for a 55 year old lady. My only complaint is that they didn't play Brass in Pocket. If you're The Pretenders how can you not play Brass in Pocket?! But I digress, they were good none the less. The only remaining members of The Who left are Pete Townsend and Roger Daltrey. These are two talented individuals. Especially Pete who essentially wrote all of The Who's material. It was a good show. It was also nice to be someplace where I felt young. I don't get that too often any more. Tickets were a bit on the pricy side, and I'm glad that I didn't have to pay for them. Thanks Mo and ProKarma.

Corwin was sick on Friday. Anke was sick on Sunday. Scotty was sick today. Corwin's pediatrician thought it was probally the Noral Virus. I'm feeling better now, but still don't feel quite right. We'll see how I feel in the morning, but I think that it may be another day at home for me tomorrow. On Friday I'm supposed to go to Des Moines and visit Eric and his fiance Diana (pronounced Dee-ana, a fine Chicana lass way out of LT's league). I hope I'm feeling better by then, as I'm rather looking forward to it.

Why am I not surprised

You are The Fool

The Fool is the card of infinite possibilities. The bag on the staff indicates that he has all he need to do or be anything he wants, he has only to stop and unpack. He is on his way to a brand new beginning. But the card carries a little bark of warning as well. Stop daydreaming and fantasising and watch your step, lest you fall and end up looking the fool.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Trucker Movies from Three Continents

This post is mostly for me, because I'm not sure anyone else will really appreciate it. These are the opening credits for BJ and the Bear (actually an American TV show not movie), a German trucker film and a Japanese dekotora truck movie.







I love how similar these all are and how a simple fascination with big trucks is universal the world over.

Thanksgiving

As some of you may or may not know, Mom and Dad are getting ready to sell my childhood home. They are planning on moving to the Omaha/Council Bluffs metro area. Many people ask how I feel about this when I tell them and my answer is that this is a good thing. I love my parents and have a great relationship with them. I think it will be nice for Corwin to see his grandparents more often too. Plus they have a couple of dogs, and I can borrow one to take to the dog park on days when it looks to be a good doggy in the park day. So it was decided to go back to C'town for one last Thanksgiving in the old house.

Unfortuately Anke got sick on Wednesday night and was still Ill Thursday morning, so she wasn't up to making the 3.5 to 4 hour drive. So me and Corwin- and all of his gear- piled into Maurice's new Jeep Commander with he and Bernie. This is a great road tripping truck with plenty of Hemi power, a smooth comfortable ride, and amazingly quite inside, considering it has the aerodynamics of a brick. It could also tackle the Rubicon Trail should it jump out in front of us.

It was a good day. As soon as we got to town Dad, Corwin and I went to Aunt Dorris's to say hi. We don't get over often and she and her family don't get to see Corwin much. Of course he was a huge hit, as always. Aunt Dorris gave Corwin a couple of Uncle PJ's old Beenie Babies. He got a nice little bear and a monkey. Corwin was pleased.

Dinner was up next at Mom and Dad's. The food- standard Thanksgiving fare turkey, stuffing, potatos and such- was great as always. Thanks Mom. Corwin and I went to visit the Milani family at around 3ish. Ostensibly the reason for the visit is to see Bill, Pam, Tony and the newest Milani Jen along with all of the others. But the real reason is for a slice of Pam's Apple Pie. The best pie I have ever had. I shall miss that pie on future Thanksgivings.

Toward the evening Corwin wanted to play outside some, so we went for a visit to Maurice's farm near Rolling Cove, Lake Rathbun. His farm isn't really big as farms go. And it isn't really farm like in that he doesn't really grow any crops but grass and poison ivy. It is really more of a giant camp site. But it is pretty big as far as camp sites go. One actually forgets how big it really is living in the city. The weather was wonderful for late November. Corwin kept lying down on the grass as if it were the most comfortable bed on earth.

All in all a good Thanksgiving. Shall I include the obligatory list of things I'm thankful for. Sure, why not.

I'm thankful for my wife, Anke. She is beautiful, smart, crafty(in the arts and crafts way, not the con you out of your lunch money way) and a good mom. I'm thankful for Corwin. He is just perfect, all I could ever ask for in a child. Well I could ask that he sleeps in maybe an hour later, but that's it. I'm thankful for my family. They know how much I love them. I'm blessed with wonderful friends most of whom I don't see enough. I have a good job that I usually don't hate going to in the morning. I'm not making mad cash, but I can pay all of my bills. I have the toy car I always wanted. But that doesn't stop me from wanting more cars. Like an early 50's Oldsmobile that I could drive across Mexico in a rally. But I digress. I think it's important to make lists like this on occasion in order to remind me that even when I'm feeling down, life isn't so bad.

I want to be a (sorta) race car driver

I so much want to be driving one of these old cars through Mexico.

La Carrera Panamericana blog (Day 5)

Halloween

Corwin was an exceptionally cute little cow for Halloween. Instead of trick or treating on Halloween night we went to Uncle Maurice's and helped give out candy. Corwin rather liked Aunt Bernie's Hello Kittie bucket. Some day Corwin will hate me for this picture.Thursday was Corwin's last day with Miss Crystal, his daycare teacher. She is moving on to Nursing school. Crystal is great and we are going to miss her. So far we have been extremely lucky with the daycare providers that Corwin has had and we hope this luck continues.

Broken Kettle Grasslands

Last Sunday - 2006-11-29- we took advantage of the unseasonable warm weather and went looking for Prairie Rattlesnakes in Broken Kettle Grasslands, just north of Souix City.We found this little guy first. He is your average Bull Snake, but an exceptionally pretty one in my opinion.He thought he was a vicious little critter though.Yellow Bellied Racer
The Loess HillsCorwin found the land managers yellow lab more interesting than the snakes.We found 4 Prairie Rattlers and caught 3. I say we, but I didn't do any actual catching as I had Corwin on my back. Plus I'm more than a bit scared of the pit vipers, so I leave the handling of them to friends with experience, skill and the proper equipment. The snakes were measured, had the GPS locations where they were discovered recorded. The two smaller snakes were also pit tagged so that if they were caught again in the future the data could be appended to their record. The larger rattlesnake pictured had been previously pit tagged in 2001.

Black Squirrel

I'd never seen a black squirrel before moving to Omaha a few years ago. I've since developed a -perhaps unhealthy- obsession with them since. As some of you may or may not know, if I had to be a rodent, I would choose to be a squirrel. And preferably a black one. They are rather rare here as I have only seen one in my neighborhood, across the street. One in Memorial Park, and one in West Omaha. I'm sure there are more, but these are the three individuals that I can account for. I spent about 40 minutes stalking the one in the park on Saturday.

This grey/red squirrel was chasing our black friend first. Then he turned the tables.I'm not sure how many trees that I followed him through, but I was amazed at the ground he could cover without touching the ground.

More HDZ

One of the nice things about living somewhere that isn't Centerville is that there are things to do. We have an annual pass to the zoo, so whenever Corwin is bored we like to stop by. Many people who visit the zoo try to see the whole thing in one go, but I don't like this. It can really wear you out, like going to a museum. By the end of the day, you're tired and not really enjoying yourself, but by damn you paid full admission and you're going to see everything. But because I visit the zoo two or three times a month I stroll along taking my time watching the exhibits that I really enjoy, getting passed by most everyone.

When we got the to the Desert Dome today, we saw our friend Andrew in the Sun Room. I don't remember his exact title, but he is the number 2 man in charge of reptiles in the Desert Dome. He invited us in and showed a couple of interesting things, before he had to go investigate some tree that fell over somewhere. He showed us a three day old gecko that was rather cute. And Corwin got introduced to a Black Something Something Snake. Andrew described it as a poor man's Indigo Snake. Corwin wasn't afraid at all and wanted to touch her, but even though she wasn't poisonous it would have hurt had she bit him. But she was a rather nice and calm snake.

Columbus Day

Italians think they're so damn important that they have to have their own holiday. I'm looking at you Tony. Can't they make up some cool holiday like the Irish and St. Patty's day where everyone gets drunk on green beer? Noooo, they've got to celebrate some guy who discovered America about 500 years after the vikings. And several thousand years after the Native Americans. But anyway, with thier holiday comes the closing of the government. And Corwin's daycare is in a government building. So even though I'm supposed to work, he can't go to daycare on Columbus Day. So I took Corwin to the zoo Monday afternoon.

Corwin had fun playing on the brass lion pride at the Henry Doorly Zoo's main entrance. He ran through the Desert Dome and wanted to play in all of the puddles and water falls that exist through out the complex. I got to watch the jack rabbits, which I rather enjoy. The older ones always have these torn up ears from numerous battles. Who knew that bunnies could be such warriors? We then went to the aquarium and played around the penguin tanks. We went through the tunnel aquarium next and Corwin became infatuated with these two girls that were maybe 6 or 7. He does this all the time, he'll see a cute little girl much too old for him, and stare at her or follow her around hoping to be friends. He is a terrible flirt. He should be more respectable like his father.

Return from C-town

I've always meant to take a picture of these funny dinosaurs at some place called Benny Davis Farm between Centerville and Corydon. I finally got around to it today. I'll have to do it again sometimes because I'm not happy with the quality of the image taken with my old point-and-shoot digital camera. And for those who care, my gas milage has increased from around 11 mpg to 17 with the new four speed transmission.

Yellow Hat

In many ways I'm a fairly simple guy. I'm really white trash with a decent income. I drive a 35 year old muscle car. I lament the fact that I don't own a house so that I might own a tree that I could hang an engine from to work on. I've owned ten cars in my life, and none has been an import. If you look in my fridge right now, you'll find Sam Adams but that doesn't mean that I don't enjoy the occasional Miller High Life or Busch Light. And little things often please me. I'm not very complex in some ways and that's OK. I know me and I like me.

Case in point, my new Hurst shifter finally arrived from Jegs.com today. It has been back ordered for a couple of weeks, but I wasn't in a hurry about it because I thought I had to have to whole transmission rebuilt. A shifter for it wasn't very important at the time. So I open the Jegs box and inside is my ratchet shifter but also a bright yellow Jegs hat that I didn't order. I suppose they included it just to say sorry for taking so long to get this to you. It pleased me in an illogical and stupid way. I put the hat on and show it to Anke, all excited that I had gotten a free hat. She says, "You look like someone from Iowa." And she's right, I put on this hat and I feel like I'm strait outta Mystic*! It makes me wish I still had my old black '77 Camaro that was held together with bondo, but was stupid fast. I could then put on my yellow hat and cruise the square listening to AC/DC in style.

Of course Corwin steals the hat right off of my head, and he just looks impossibly cute.




*Mystic is a small run down town about 8.5 minutes from Centerville.

Sometimes procrastination doesn't pay off

If you've been reading this you know that I put a new transmission in the Cutlass a month or so ago. Well the bloody thing was making a funny noise and not shifting right. The whole car was also extremely sluggish- like I'd lost 20 or 30 horse power. I was afraid that the transmission that I bought was bad. On top of that, the company that I bought the damn thing from is in bankruptcy at the moment. I was lucky to even get a transmission, some folks didn't. It was one of the last ones I believe.

But I was afraid to take the car to a transmission shop, because I didn't want to hear the bad news that the whole thing is junk and it'll cost you at least $1000 to rebuild the boat anchor in your drive train. I was talking to Dad about that this weekend and he suggested that I have Doug Widick of Widick Diesel rebuild it for me. Doug's shop is the only place that Dad will allow to touch his semi. Doug uses Dad's Western Star as a test truck of sorts and does all kinds of fun and wacky stuff to make it get better fuel mileage. He is currently getting around 7.5 mpg and pushing 550+ horsepower. That 7.5 mpg is a very impressive feat for a semi.

Anyway I didn't want to bring the car to Doug without really knowing the transmission was toast. So I took the Cutlass to a transmission shop (Transmissions Incorporated at 49th and Dodge, Omaha) that is only about 4 blocks from where I live. They sign out front that says free transmission diagnosis. So I thought that I'd have them check it out first. They then called about noon to say that the funny noise was the transmission dipstick was vibrating against something and the throttle pressure needed adjusted along with a cable stop thingy. Kirk at the shop said they could do all this for $51.43. This pleased me greatly- along with Anke who was very understanding and wasn't even going to yell at me if I had to get the transmission rebuilt.

I picked the car up after work and suddenly the Cutlass and I were friends again. I couldn't hear the transmission and it was much peppier. It seems that before getting fixed the car wasn't ever staying in first gear, so I was always taking off in second, which will make your car seem slower than it actually is.

So the moral of the story is I should have faced the music and taken it to the guys down the street weeks ago. I'd have been much happier if I had.

TV

The few TV shows I really like, inevitably get cancelled during their first season. This was true of Firefly and the quirky Push, Nevada. Both of these shows premiered in 2002. Push, Nevada was cancelled after only 6 episodes. ABC was kind enough to give them a seventh episode to try and wrap everything up in a rather unsatisfying and rushed way. They put the bloody show up against CSI and it got crushed in the ratings, what did they expect to happen? ABC didn't try working with it at all.

That same year Firefly premiered and it lasted almost the entire year. But it got cancelled with three completed episodes unaired. Fortunately these episodes were released when the box set for series was released. So, firefly was successful enough and had enough of a cult following to warrant the release of all of it's episodes on DVD and the release of a the firefly movie: Serenity.

Well, there are a couple of shows that I like that seemed to have done OK: Boondocks on Comedy Central and My Name is Earl on NBC. Carnivale made it through two seasons on HBO. I've only seen a couple of episodes of Deadwood, but I think I would really like it if I had the opportunity to see them all.

Anyway, what this leads me to is that I saw a really cool TV show on NBC last night (Monday nights at 8 central time.) Heroes. It's about average people developing superpowers. My favorite example is a wageslave in Japan- named Hiro appropriately enough- who stares at his clock until he makes the second hand go backward for one second. He then jumps up and goes running down the rows of cubicles celebrating and yelling about how he has altered the time space continuum. Later in the bar, his buddy thinks he's nuts and tells him if he can really alter the space time continuum why doesn't he teleport into the ladies room. As he goes to the bar for another beer he turns around to see Hiro getting drug out of the ladies room and thrown out by bouncers. As the bouncers are throwing him out he is yelling "Yahoooo!". Another good story line in the show deals with two brothers. The older successful brother is running for congress and always casts a huge shadow over the younger health care provider brother. But he thinks he can fly. He'll finally be the special one. He tells his brother this and his brother thinks he's nuts. So he jumps off of a building to prove to himself and his brother that he can fly. As he falls to the ground the older brother- the successful one, the one running for congress, the already "special" brother- ends up flying to save little brother. The writing was good, the acting was good. Its more of a good drama with funny parts than a superhero show. I really hope there are enough geeks out there like me who watch it to make it successful.

German Photo Diary - Part 3

We took a day hike in Saxon Switzerland- so called because it resembles a little Switzerland in Saxony. This installment deals with that day trip.Waiting for the train to take us to the mountains.

Corwin watches little Anouk. He really liked Anouk and didn't really get jealous of her at all.
We're on our way climbing Robber's Mountain, where bandit's used to hide out back in the day.
I'm climbing a ladder through a very tight crevice. I was happy to have the hood on the backpack at this point, knowing that would hit the bottom of a rock before Corwin's head would.
Corwin and I safely emerge from the gap. It was all rather nerve racking and a bit tedious. You tend to worry a bit more when you have your son on your back in these situations, plus it affects your center of gravity in a negative way. After getting to the top of the hill/mountain and taking the back pack off I felt like a veritable billy goat.
Andre's favorite past time is rock climbing. Climbing shear rock cliffs, not a simple hike with ladders and rails that we used to reach the top of Robber's Mountain. So he has lots of nifty climbing equipment. You'll notice that Corwin is wearing a children's climbing harness. It is attached by a rope to Andre's climbing harness. The allowed us to give Corwin a little more freedom on the top of the mountain.
Corwin looks down the chimney of the bandit's fire pit in the cave below.
Corwin from a fire's point of view.
Magestic views from mountain tops are never as impressive in photos as reality.
A picnic in the forest.
The forest.
The day ends in a ginger bread village only a handful of miles from the Czech Republic boarder.

German Photo Diary - Part 2

This is a shot of Schneeburg- Snow Mountain in German- where Anke grew up and we spend several days.

Oma Renate and Tante Ursel with a napping Corwin.
Corwin's little path.
Water Lillies.
Anouk's Racer.
If you'll look closely you'll notice that the little square bale of hay is flying through the air. That's right, the red thing forms the bale of hay then flings in into the following cart. While we've been fighting a war in Iraq our great country has taken the eye off of the ball and been surpassed in the ever important field of hay-baling technology.
A lake where we spent the afternoon hiking.
Some evil genious devised this pool and placed it along a hiking trail to lure in unsuspecting Americans and tourture them. You see, they place a sign there that says walking through fucking cold water on rocks is somehow good for you. He probally also believed that leaches were good for removing the bad humours from the blood. The only refreshing thing about it was how amazing it felt to no longer be in the torture chamber. I did two circuits of the pool. Crazy Inga did five.

Family.
Punk toddler flies through the air.
I just like this picure. I does a good job of showing the constant motion that Corwin is in.
Samurai Andre duels with Corwin.
This could maybe be Iowa. It isn't.
Touring the church.
Corwins discovers the beauty of puddles.
Mushrooms.
Pond of the Dead. Really that's what it's called.

More photos still to come.