Storm Shots

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A strong and fast-moving thunderstorm had just passed, bringing dramatic dark clouds, major lightning bolts, and a much needed downpour. As it started to let up, I ran out to snap some photos and was rewarded with a very cool rainbow. I just couldn’t get far enough away to capture the whole thing in my photos!

Then I went inside to drag the kids away from their video game for a minute, to come outside and take in the rainbow (and stand in an open field during an electrical storm) and give Mother Nature her due.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you all. This one is a couple of years old, but it is a genuine Irish toast to all of you, that I promise will be repeated this year.

P.S. This is blog post #300. They come in waves, I know, but somehow they keep on coming.

Merry Christmas!

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The buildup has been fun this holiday season. From decorations, parties, Christmas movies and caroling… and it has all led to a very Merry Christmas.

With best wishes… We Wish You a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Christmas Tree, All Grown Up

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We are the third owners of a house that was built in 1982. You can tell by the cool date brick. Earlier this year, while I was out doing some yard work, a man that looked to be in his 20s approached and told me that this had been his childhood home. He was about to head on an extended trip to central America, and since he was in the area he thought he’d come by and pay the place a visit. As one that has been know to make pilgrimiges to previous homes myself, I appreciated his desire to drop by and was glad to show him around.

I learned something very special about the large pine tree in our yard from our visitor. It has been a wonderful climbing tree for our kids, and a place to hang our bird feeder. The family we bought the home from told us they used to decorate it with Christmas lights until it grew too large.

But what I learned was that during their first Christmas in our house, they had a live Christmas tree, and following the holiday they planted that tree in the yard of their new home. I love the fact that their 1982 Christmas tree became a gift to this house, and now it’s grown so large, our house almost looks like a gift beneath it.

St. Nicholas Snow Day

st_nick.jpgAs a kid, there were a few holiday traditions brought over from the old world family roots in Bohemia. Some were food related, like the braided Hoska bread, or the Kolacky pastries. But the other meant gifts, and that’s why I enjoyed the fact that we celebrated St. Nicholas day in our house.

St. Nicholas of Myra lived in the 4th Century in what is today the country of Turkey. According to Wikipedia, he was known for secret gift giving and “is revered by many as the patron saint of seamen, merchants, archers, children, prostitutes, pharmacists, lawyers, pawnbrokers, prisoners, the city of Amsterdam and of Russia.” Happily, as a child, I fell into the child category and so was glad to celebrate his feast day on December 6th.

Although I’m not sure we really celebrated it as they did in the the Czech Republic. To me, celebrating St. Nicholas day meant an early visit by the historical predecessor to the coming visit by Santa which followed three weeks later. We’d get some toys and some candy (always a Lifesavers Sweet Storybook). That’s all that mattered.

St. Nicholas was known to travel with some less appealing companions. Good children would receive gifts from St. Nicholas, while bad once received beatings. My mother recalls that her Grandfather would dress as Black Pete to scare his siblings and later his children. Presumably they were beaten.

Yesterday we had enough snow that today the schools were closed and my wife and kids enjoyed a bonus day off. There was candy and gifts in their shoes (thanks folks), as there had been in mine. And while, like me, they know little more about the day than I did, I’m glad to carry on the tradition. Maybe this year I’ll try and make a Hoska. Next year, I’ll be Black Pete.

Old School Xmas Lights

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You taught me everything I know about exterior illumination.
Clark Griswold to his father in Christmas Vacation

I’ve never done much with Christmas lights. Over the years I’ve made many a half-assed effort, putting a few strings of mini-lights together with some garland on the porch. Or following crowd with a string of stupid white ‘icicle’ lights.

Not this year. This year, we got ourselves some ‘real’ Christmas lights, and I even found the nerve to drag my shaking butt out onto the roof to hang a string on the second floor. Our Christmas display won’t be causing any traffic jams of cars filled with wide-eyed gawkers. By most any measure, it’s rudimentary. But everything is relative, and for us this is a big leap forward built on a happy memory looking backward.

I hesitate to confess my other memory about these big old Christmas lights, but it’s time I did. I remember the satisfying ‘POP’ a hot Christmas bulb would make when hurled like a grenede onto the street behind our house. Sorry Dad, Sean and Kevin made me promise not to tell 😕

RISK

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At the front end of our long Thanksgiving weekend, I was determined not to let it all be lost to mind-numbing hours of the Cartoon Network, or the isolation of our laptops. And so I found and dusted off one off my old favorite board games, RISK.

My older brother Sean really enjoyed this game, and I remember him teaching me to play on the set we had with armies made of small wooden blocks of different colors and shapes. It’s a great mix of strategy and luck. My current set dates to my college days, where many a battle was fought. But it’s been a real long time since my generalship has been tested on the RISK board.

Colleen and Will were quick to take up my challenge to fight over the world. We’ve played two games so far this weekend. I won the first, but was the first to go in the second, and I’m typing this now as they engage in the final battle. There’s a special sort of fatherly pride to hear my daughter shout, “I’m coming into Irkutsk from Kamchatka with three!”. And she did.

Blog Lull

Look at that calendar to the right, a 10-day lull in my blogging. What a letdown I must be to my reader in Singapore. And for this, I’m sorry. The thing is I’ve been crazy busy lately. All good stuff, kids are coming and going from school and events, and our color-coded family calendar looks like some kind of patchwork of events. Work is crazy busy, also all good. The alternative to ‘busy’ at work is never good. Happily I work for a fine company that recognizes the need for some distraction now and then, and I’ve recently made good use of it.

And so, from time to time, there is no time. And the time available for worthy ruminations on the important and the mundane shrinks. I’m always thinking of things worth writing about, “I need to blog about that” is a frequent thought bubble hovering over my head. Maybe the Thanksgiving holiday will provide the opportunity to recharge and get some of those ideas out of my head and make room for something new. Not a lot of room in there you know, I have to keep a high turnover rate if I hope to find a good idea in there.

Happy Election Day!

I’m not sure exactly when Election Day became one of my favorites on the calendar. Obviously, the fact that I work in politics has much to do with it. Election Day is the culmination of a candidate’s and a party’s efforts to make their case. It is the day when the voters make their choice. It’s what our Democracy is all about.

There is much that is wrong with Election Days in our country. The 2000 Election revealed the dirty secret that America’s elections aren’t as smooth running and legitimate as we’d like to believe. Negative campaigning, low voter turnouts, and lack of real choices are all problems with our system. But they can be fixed.

At the end of the day, the dust will settle and we’ll have some results. But first, go vote. Vote Democrat, Vote Republican, vote for the person rather than the party, vote however you choose, but just vote. It matters and it counts.

Converting to Pastafarianism

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I have done a good deal of soul-searching lately, reflecting on questions of life, morality, and religion. Via their blogs, a few different friends have introduced me to a Church to which I feel like I might belong, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

A young religion, Flying Spaghetti Monsterism contends that the universe was created by an invisible, undetectable Flying Spaghetti Monster, beginning with a mountain, some trees, and a midgit. All evidence of evolution was planted by the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Also, there is a direct correlation in the increase of global warming, earthquakes and hurricanes, and the decrease of pirates.

Flying Spaghetti Monsterism has gained attention this year, when our prophet, a twenty-something from Oregon, wrote to the Kansas School Board demanding that if they were going to require that “Intelligent Design” be taught in the classroom, that his theory that the universe was intelligently designed by a flying spaghetti monster, deserves its share of that classroom time.

In researching the religion on its web site, the case for conversion was summed up quickly and convincingly as follows:

WHY YOU SHOULD CONVERT TO FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTERISM

  • Flimsy moral standards.
  • Every friday is a relgious holiday. If your work/school objects to that, demand your religious beliefs are respected and threaten to call the ACLU.
  • Our heaven is WAY better. We’ve got a Stripper Factory AND a Beer Volcano.

I’m sold, why not? A religion, or a prophet, may be thousands of years old with a worldwide following, or a few months old with a tiny one. Time may bring growth and acceptance to Pastafarianism.

May we all be touched by his noodly appendage… Ramen.

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