Destroying Angel Heavy Industries

Woke up this morning before dawn and ran six miles. They weren't very fast miles (9-minutes each), but there were some decent hill climbing along the way. I was feeling pretty good at the end of it - not winded at all.

On the way in to work, I practiced Russian courtesy of a Russian language CD.

Holy shit do I feel productive!

Picked almost 20 pounds worth of blueberries in the hot, hot sun. All this in order to satisfy a pregnant woman's cravings. While we were at it we picked 10 pounds of cherries (which went much more quickly). My crystal ball shows many pies in our future.

Also I fired up GIMP and turned a picture of zedress into something nice and old-timey. Just because I could.

Great-Uncle Shitkicker was renown for his fondness of apple tea. He expressed his pleasure by scowling like a dude who shit out a cactus.

I stopped traffic on a busy highway today and helped a family of baby ducks across.

It was a good way to start the morning.

HOLY SHIT I JUST DRANK AN ENTIRE CABBAGE.

And also 2 apples, 4 carrots, 3 inches of ginger, and an entire Jicama.

How did I accomplish this non-sequitur? Did it involve much LSD and a salad bar? No, friends. I have performed this modern day marvel with the help of my homeslice Jack Lalanne and his POWER JUICER.



Oh. Hellz. Yeah.

Jack Lalanne is a pretty amazing guy. He's over 90 years old and can still do pushups on his finger tips. He holds several world records in things like swimming several miles while wearing handcuffs and pulling 13 boats with people in them. Forget that washed out old has-been Chuck Norris -- Jack Lalanne is the new (old) king of all things ridiculously badass.


So anyways, I made a concoction out of an entire head of red cabbage and aforementioned vegetables. It didn't taste half bad, but it was rough times making about a gallon of it go down the hatch. TNT just watched in wide-eyed amazement and daintily drank her apple/carrot concoction.

I'm going to live to be a million as soon as I'm done shitting my spleen out. I'm pretty sure I just got a lifetime supply of fiber in a 20 minute window.

The juicer kicks ass, by the way.

So I had a MacGuyver moment this weekend.

Like all riveting stories, this one starts with me mowing the lawn. I had just started when I noticed three gasoline jets geysering out the top of the gas cap like a damned Calliope. "WHAT THE FUCK?!?" I bellowed loudly, as is my wont on such occasions. I powered the mower off and, like any good engineer, began to swear loudly and creatively about the ancestry of the dumb motherfucker who designed the thing. Small children ran to their homes in tears, black smoke pouring from their ears.

I examined the gas cap, and noticed that there were 3 pinholes in the top of it. They were obviously there by design, probably to allow gasoline fumes to escape. Pushed up next to the holes was a soggy piece of (cardboard? maybe?) whose only function in life was to keep liquids inside the gastank and allow fumes to pass to the outside. It was completely soaked through, ripped in one or two places, and was no longer up to it's humble task.

In the far corner of my garage, a leather jacket lay abandoned and nearly forgotten. It was the jacket that I wore religiously throughout college. Hundred and twelve degree day? Didn't matter. Leather jacket. It was the jacket that hid my scrawny ribcage from the world until puberty turned me into the brawny he-man that we all know and love today. It was the jacket that helped to redefine me as an island of badass in a sea of yuppie ponces.

I wore this jacket so much that it nearly rotted off of my body. Drunken fratboys would howl "LEATHER!!!!" when they saw me walk by, then resume the act of making a baby with other fratboys. The jacket was my armor against a douchebag onslaught, it was my entry ticket into counterculture, it was my toughguy credentials, it was the physical object that most defined me for six of the best and wildest years of my life.

It now has a circular hole in it. Leather stops gas leaks gooood.

I have sacrificed my oldest friend upon the altar of lawn maintenance. Somehow I feel that this marks a turning point in my life. A cold wind blows from the east, and the distant rumble of thunder shakes under my feet.

Hello middle age, how you been?

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."


Note: "Conning a ship" means "to direct its movements, specifically by giving directions to the helmsman, who operates the tiller and actually steers the ship."

( So how do you measure up? )

Not my bird, but close to it. (Minus the caring mommy.)

There's a baby robin in my backyard.

He's a fledgling - he can flap his wings a bit, and can almost get off the ground, but is about a week away from being a strong flier. The fat little guy is very trusting; when I saw him last night, he was sitting right in the middle of our flower garden, and as I approached he opened his mouth and begged to be fed! I plucked some mulberries off of a nearby tree and put them in his happy little beak. After three good sized berries, he flapped his wings and then ran off into a dense patch of flowers. It was almost like "Kay thanks for the berries got to go now bye bye"

SO. FUCKING. CUTE.

Someone has been gracious enough to prop my limp carcass into this chair and turn on the computer in front of me. The words you see here are not the result of typing in the traditional sense, with nimble fingers tapping their cadence across the keyboard. I lack the energy for that. Instead I close my eyes until consciousness leaves me, whereupon my body to slumps forward and my head buries itself face-first into the keyboard. I lay there for some time until a random coworker passes by and yanks me by my collar into a more or less upright position where the process can repeat itself.

From this chaos, words form. It's like a noisy and painful Ouija board.

My weekend was baby shower. Hordes of squealing women (many related to us) invading my house, exciting my pack of worthless dogs, examining the 2 pound dust bunnies that live under my couch with ill-concealed disgust.

In the run-up to the shower, I installed a hardwood floor, patched/sanded/painted acres of walls, and moved 1.3 metric fucktons of furniture to and fro. Table saw to cut the floorboards. Plaster dust coating my lungs and nurturing small nodules of mesothelioma. Unspeakable evil ground into the tattered underside of quarter-century old carpet I am replacing. Menacing carpet gnomes accost me with pickaxes and feral dust mites inject their venom into my body.

The place looks good. I have sacrificed my body for this.

Dad saved me from the Estrogenfest 2008 by going with me to the National Firearms Museum, and later to a decent Scottish place that keeps mad different types of Scotch on hand. He would not try the haggis. I wonder if maybe Scottish people don't really eat that, but only serve it to tourists. I think it tastes pretty good, but I don't mind eating organ meat.

TNT was very pleased with all the work I did in getting our place ready. She told me that she'd like to do something nice for me today, and asked what I wanted most of all. I wanted to say "just ain't ask me to do SHIT for the next 48 hours", but I only got as far as the fifth word before I was snoring slightly and streaming drool. She tucked me into bed and I remember nothing of the next 10 hours until my alarm went off.

CAFFEINE I SUMMON THEE

For those who don't know me, I come from a Christian background. I went to a conservative Christian (protestant) school, and even though I never quite fit in to that mold, I bought into most of the right-leaning beliefs that come with that territory.

Over the past few years, I've had a number of my beliefs challenged. Some of this has come from my travels, as several of them have been to biblical sites. Some have come from sitting down and talking with people from around the world who come from radically different backgrounds. Some of it has come from reading and rereading the bible, apocrypha, textual criticisms, Christian apologetics, and relevant histories. But the overwhelming majority of what makes me scratch my head and say "am I really on the right path?" is when I look at the people around me who profess to follow the same religion, and see the quality of their lives.

If you are curious, here is a snapshot of what I believe. All beliefs subject to change pending convincing evidence.

( My beliefs as of 2008 )

This weekend will be the fifth weekend in a row that has been set aside for babyproofing and/or improving my home. I understand the need for this - which I suppose means I am one step closer to being a responsible adult(tm) - but I still harbor bitterness and resentment that the fun-ness of my weekends are all but squandered. Sweeping up shattered whisky bottles from the stairs. Harvesting the ocean of seven foot tall grass that is our front yard. Offering yearly tribute of shackled Grecian youths to the Minotaur that lives in our basement. I could be doing so much more fun stuff than this.

The biggest effort this weekend will be the complete removal of the last bit of carpet from our upstairs, and the installation of solid oak in its place. The carpet dates back to 1985 (when our house was built), and is not in good shape. This ancient carpet has only slightly fewer stains, frayed spots, and communicable diseases than a leper colony, so it should probably be removed before the baby is born. The little guy doesn't need to be catchin' no Venezuelan Butt AIDS just from learning to crawl.

Hardwood is wonderful! It's durable, it looks beautiful, and will teach my young progeny that standing upright involves less pain than faceplanting on the floor. I have several hundred pounds of unfinished oak stacked up in my basement, and since I'm the 50% of my household who isn't helluv pregnant, I'll be the pack mule lugging it up the steps. Hyah, mule! A tasty carrot awaits you at the finish of your toils!


Also I'm going to see Indiana Jones and the Temple of Please God Don't Let George Lucas Have Fucked This Franchise Up Too Badly. Hopefully on Saturday!