Insomnialmanac

There are so many things worth saying, I know that now.  I look at other people's content (famous people) and I find it hard to believe that I censor myself so completely.

I have been feeling a need to write about my mom, lately, and I've been holding back.  It seems kind of silly, now, though, reading about a guy farting while working out.

There are so many things I want to say about mom.  So many wonderful things she's done for me, for other people. Quite a few not so wonderful things.  Let's face it, we've all got those -- we're human. 

I like to think the positives outweigh the negatives for mom.  Then again, I like to think the same for most people.

My aunt shared a memory that her son had of mom, when she was here for the funeral.  He and his sister had very sharp recollections of mom singing to them when they were younger.  It really resonated with me because mom singing was a constant throughout my childhood. 

She liked Ella FItzgerald.  She liked BIllie Holliday.  She liked the Beatles.  She liked Barbara Streisand and Melissa Manchester.  She liked Aerosmith.  She liked the Band and the Traveling Wilburies.

Through her appreciation of music and her love of singing, mom opened doors for me.  When I'm happy, I sing.  Sometimes, I have a hard time keeping a filter in place at work.  I'm sure notes have squeaked out here and there, and it's all mom's fault. 

Mom was a very protective woman.  I'll always remember how a friend of hers promised me a job and when she didn't come through, mom kinda snapped.  I won't say that it ended their friendship but it did change things.

I needed mom, a lot.  I'm sure that everyone could say that, but it doesn't make it less true.  I'm a momma's boy and I feel no shame in admitting that.

Mom was second-mom to a lot of friends.  Not just my friends, but my sister's friends and my brother's friends, too.  Simon, who lived with us for a time, was welcomed into the room with the family during the funeral and I was certainly glad to have him there.  He certainly feels like a second brother to me, sibling rivalry and all.

Since mom passed, I've been trying to plough straight ahead, as if nothing has changed.  For the most part, I've done a pretty good job of it, but I will admit that I've been feeling more temper and less patience, lately.  I'm hoping that getting all this off my chest will take some pressure off and help me be the husband and father I want - and need - to be.

One more thing to say, and then I'll leave off this morose piece of text:

Kyle and Erron, I don't talk about her much, because it's sure to bring tears to my eyes, but I need you guys to know that Katie is never far from my thoughts.  All I need to do is to look at the light in NIck and Lilly's eyes and know how lucky I am to have them. 

I want to extend to the both of you my love, my admiration, and my condolences.  Also, I want to congratulate you on your upcoming move.  Hopefully, we won't have to wait so long between visits, any more.

Okay, that's all.  I'm done for now.  Until more later on.

My funny wife - or - that big red mark on my head

My wife is funny. Sometimes, she is funnier than she is nice. I don't have a problem saying things like that because when I tell her she is doing something mean, she acts hurt and responds by saying things like: "But it's funny!"

So when she hacked my facebook account and put a picture up of my forehead hickey, I accepted it.

I will explain. My children received approximately four-hundred dollar-store toys at a Family-Day carnival on the weekend. One of these things was one of those popping half-spherical pieces of rubber. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. You turn it inside out, put it on the table and, seconds later, it pops up in the air, driven by the force of its return to its original shape.

Lilly and I were playing around with it, and I stuck it to my head. Pulling it off broke some surface blood vessels which resulted in a near-perfect circular hickey on my forehead.

Kim, being easily-amused, decided while I was reading, to take some oh-so-funny pictures of my injury, log in to facebook with my credentials, and post a new profile picture along with a funny status update.

I won't keep you in suspense anymore. Here is the picture:

Kim will probably make some plea to your sensitivities, telling you that she's some poor pregnant woman, and that her horrible, mean, and stick-in-the-mud husband is just being mean to her, never letting her have any fun. Don't let her do that. She is funny. There is no way to deny that. She's just not always nice.

Beaver Camp

So, I thought I was going to write about the rest of my Chicagoland trip here but since it’s basically all technical in nature, I figured I would leave it for Intuitive Techniques if I ever get back to updating that site.

Anyway, we went to Beaver Camp last weekend, the culmination of the Beavering year. (And also my last official act as a Beaver leader. Next year I get to hold the reins of the Cub Pack as Akela.)

We stayed at Camp Maskepatoon, just off of Pigeon Lake. Actually on the shores of Pigeon Lake.

Hm… highlights…

- Hawkeye dropping the sister of one of our Beavers into the lake and then running like a coward. (We’ve got video evidence)

- Lily and Kim’s boat ride

- The birth of the BubbleStar Galactica (pictures to follow at some point) and The Holder – Nick’s boat

- A campfire where nothing went very right but nothing went terribly wrong

- Capture the flag with the most cheating per game (CPG) that I have ever seen.

- Soccer where Granny shone and I kicked a ball at a 12 year old harder than I should have.

- Archery that left a bruise on my forearm. At least it didn’t stay all raised and bumpy.

- Pouring from a big pot, out of a ladel. (Give a couple seconds after your first dip. It lets the grounds settle a little)

- Puerto Rico – an exciting game where the Liam plantation outlasted the Rob and John plantations to secure the victory.

- Chopping wood

Lowlights…

- Scraping congealed fat off of the hood fan with first a chef’s knife and then a metal egg-flipper

- Cleaning toilets and mopping the bathroom, wearing soggy socks

All in all, it was another great camp. Here’s looking forward to Cubs next year!

Year in Review 2007 PART ONE

So it turns out that there's a conflict between cribbage and the keyboard so I got rid of cribbage. It's a fun game but it's hardly worth the fight. I can't exactly say that I know why this game or the program that allowed the palm to be accessed as an external drive would have caused these conflicts but that's hardly my problem. I guess it is my problem but I just couldn't be bothered by it right now.

Anyway, that rambling was meant to serve as preamble for my 2007 year in review, a review that will, by necessity, take place in hopefully satisfying chunks. We'll just have to wait and see how satisfying those chunks turn out to actually be. There are a lot of typos going on with this tiny, teeny keyboard but I'll try to clean that up and actually get something written. And I'll try later on to get those applications back on the palm and see if it's a memory thing or a conflict thing or a "The moon is in the third alignment with Venus and Uranus so the keyboard was out of metaphysical alignment with the fourteenth house of Sagittarius" type of thing.

Without further ado:

2007: A year in review

January

January was a month like any other. It was a month where I took the bus very often, I remember that much. A lot of tiptoeing around the fact that Kim had dietary issues, Nick had dietary issues and Lily had, well, you guessed it, dietary issues. All three of them cut out most things from their diet, and that was a serious period of adjustment, but it was absolutely necessary. Lily was getting rashes, Nick and Kim were getting stomach issues and everyone was all-around miserable. Aside from the adjustment to our lives with that inclusion, there did not seem to be much different there from December 2006. It would be nice if my tablet still worked so that I could consult my notes from December 2006 to see if I'm a lying sack of shit but I don't think I am anyway.

February

2007 saw the return of a Liam-post-graduation tradition of the likely-to-fail 50-book goal. Once again, I struggled to get even half-way there but I have to admit that it has become more about the struggle, the documenting of the books I have read than it is about actually making it to 50 books. I also tried to do a daily meditation - a way of getting my head straight before I started my day. I don't think it was such a bad idea but I have to admit that I should not have made them publicly consumable (if that's what I mean).

March

In March, I sat in line one cold morning to wait for the passport office to open. I waited for probably in the neighbourhood of four and a half hours to get in. I was the first one in line. The Life of Pi and my Tablet PC got me through the wait. It was really nice to walk out of there and see the disgustingly long line waiting to get into the office. I like to think that they had to wait just as long as I did. But they got to spend the majority of their wait, if not the entire thing, inside, where only the last hour or so of my wait was inside. Still, I got to go home and those suckers were stuck in line. SEE YA, SUCKERS! Bet you wish you were me, now.

April

I got older. I got crazy for spring. I got a new bike and started biking to work. I love my bike. I miss having a rigid framed bike but this one is better than any bike I've ever ridden. I'll take it, I'll ride it into the ground and I will appreciate the gift that it was. April was also the end of my second year as a Beaver Leader. I wasn't nearly as burned-out as I had been the year before. Maybe I was more used to leading, and more able to deal with it but I am pretty sure that it was mostly just a good group of Beavers. We moved into Soccer season and I was the head coach.

May

JavaOne, Beaver Camp, Soccer and biking. These were the things that dominated my May. I remember JavaOne being a cornucopia of sessions, eating, watching TV, not sleeping and then not sleeping some more. I really do sleep best at home.

June

I'm not really sure what happened in (to?) June. I know I was working quite a bit and I spent a lot of time with soccer and biking and I'm pretty sure that I might have spent a little bit of time with my family too but the specifics elude me. I think I was spending too much time on Facebook at that point.

A little family history for you

Dear Mr Jones,

Thank you for your enquiry of 17th April, in which you request
informationconcerning Robert Hardie Wilson and Julia Allen.The only information
we have relates to Mr Wilson. The minutes of a meeting held on 10th October 1901
state that "Mr Wilson, who acted as secretary ofthe club for the past five
months should receive remuneration to the extentof £75". His employment in this
capacity probably began in April of thatyear, after the existing secretary
resigned, having been in the position foronly one year.Unfortunately, we have no
further details and I have been unable to find anyreference to Julia Allen.I
hope the information supplied i! s of some use. If I can be of any
furtherassistance, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely,Angela
HoweHeritage & Museum Curator
The R&ASt AndrewsFife, KY16 9JD
Tel. +44 (0)1334 460062
www.randa.org

My cousin Mike has been digging into our family history and it turns out that my great grandfather was the secretary for the St. Andrews golf club, the birthplace of golf. Thanks to Auntie Anne for forwarding this information to me.