Grow Baby Seeds, Grow!

Remember these guys?

Well, they survived several freezes, some seriously hard rain, squirrels who thought they would take a taste, and I am sure some craziness I am unaware of to create this:

My first Sugar Snap Pea should be coming in very shortly!

The AVP Came to Dallas!

I went to the AVP Cuervo Dallas Open (that’s volleyball-speak for a professional volleyball game…as in, it was on ESPN!)…It’s the first time since 1998 that the AVP has come to Dallas! It’s back and it’s awesome! Here are a continuous series of shots of my favorite player, Misty May-Treanor, doing a killer jump serve!

There are more pictures from the event on my flickr page…

Hot Buttons Are All The Rage

In other recent hot button issues, I recently commented on Trix’s blog about the Don Imus story. Her post was very valid and interesting. I just expanded on it. If you’d like, you can read her post.

Here is what I had to say on the subject:

My feelings fall into two categories on this issue. First of all, the idea that Imus was FIRED is really pretty wrong even though that’s what everyone is calling it. What really happened wasn’t that MSNBC and CBS fired him on moral grounds, because what he said was WRONG, what happened was their advertisers, who didn’t want to be associated with that comment and alienate millions of customers (also not a MORAL choice), pulled their advertising. Without advertising, the show can’t support itself. So really, what happened was the show got pulled for lack of funding. That is not a moral stance, that is a financial decision. And I wish that point was being noted a little bit more in the media.

Secondly, it is incredibly hypocritical of the African American community to be so upset about this comment, yet still accept, condone, and produce rap music and hip hop that uses the same, and FAR WORSE language than what Imus used. If you want people to stop using that language, you have to lead by example. Just because my family is Jewish, it doesn’t mean I’m going to walk around calling myself and my friends k*kes. It doesn’t make it ok for me to do that, just because it’s about my own people. Do unto others…

What Imus said, even in jest, was wrong, but there are still things being left out in the media about this topic that are far more important that the fact that he said three disgusting words.

My two cents.

Futures Lost

The truth is, I have felt very little over the Virginia Tech massacre in the last 24 hours. It’s not that I don’t feel for the families and victims, and it’s not that I don’t think it’s a horrible tragedy. I just don’t think my brain can handle any more societal collapse. There is just too much. My brain is shutting off it’s empathy window right now.

We sit here, wondering how this tragedy could happen, outraged at the unnecessary and random loss of life, and run the story over and over on cable news, but when was the last time you heard about the civilians dying in Iraq? They die every day in situations that are equally heinous. But it’s just war, right?

We wonder how we can be desensitized to the violence, but we barely even live with it. How must people in Darfur, or Afganistan feel? They must be desensitized, too. Musn’t they? Perhaps that’s not such a bad thing. How could they go on with their lives if they wallowed in their outrage and sadness? They wouldn’t be able to function.

What happened in Virginia is horrible. A poor soul slipped through the cracks and no one noticed his deterioration. He lost his mind silently. The campus police had some inkling of what was going on, and did not immediately shut down the campus for reasons that are yet unclear. Mistakes were made at several points, but all the blame in the world isn’t going to help the families who lost someone. Not every problem can be forseen. Not every situation can have a contingency plan. We will never be able to think of everything someone might or might not do that might or might not impact another group of people.

And I am not sure I want to live in a world that could account for every contigency. That is too reminescent of Big Brother for me. Tragedies happen, and we learn from them, but second guessing everything that COULD have been done in the past will leave us no where but wallowing in our own misery.

This Is What Happens…

When the weather goes from torrential rain, to freezing cold, to sunny and warm in the course of 48 hours. Friday it was pouring, Saturday it was in the 30s and Sunday it was in the 70s. Guess which of those day should have suggested a need for sunscreen. And guess what happens when one doesn’t put it on, AND wears a long sleeved shirt pushed up to the elbows…

Visual evidence of my stupidity after the jump…

To Miracles

I received some troubling news this week. The mother of my friend Tricia (pregnant with twins, Tricia) has cancer. This has been an ongoing battle for some time now, but this week I learned she has just 3 to 6 months to live. I just don’t know what to do with that. She has been in my life, even though it has been at a distance, since I was five years old. When I think of good hearty laughter, I think of their family. I think of sitting around their kitchen table or their patio table with rolling guffaws bouncing off the walls. Arms outstretched, sparkling eyes, tons of teeth. They are a huge part of my memories, and Janet is a friend, and aunt, and surrogate mother in those thoughts.

This started with skin cancer. It progressed to lung cancer, and finally, has landed in her brain. A simple sun spot, and it’s killing her.

This just makes me sad. She is too young to leave us. She will barely meet her grandchildren. She was supposed to be one of those people I would know for years and years to come. With another mother/daughter trip ahead someday like the one we took 10 years ago. Perhaps with Tricia’s children and my children in tow, Grandmas at the ready.

This is the wrong person to go. I don’t know who is the right one, but Janet is the wrong one. If every I prayed for miracles, now is the time to remember how.

Ready For a Fight

Wow. Lee Iococca has a new book, Where Have All The Leaders Gone. I may just have to buy this one. The excerpt alone is a stinging attack on the administration in the intelligent, direct way we all should be fighting with right now. Here’s a taste:

Am I the only guy in this country who’s fed up with what’s happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We’ve got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we’ve got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can’t even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, “Stay the course.”

Stay the course? You’ve got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I’ll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!

You might think I’m getting senile, that I’ve gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don’t need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we’re fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That’s not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I’ve had enough. How about you?

I’ll go a step further. You can’t call yourself a patriot if you’re not outraged. This is a fight I’m ready and willing to have.

The Muzac of Camping

Man, I have not run across one thing funny to tell you all in ages. I have been racking my brains for some funny anecdote to pass on, but I got nothin’. My life is busy as all get out right now, but none of it is funny.

I did buy something cool this weekend though. I can’t find a picture of it anywhere, but it’s a flat speaker that is intended for camping. It has a little easel on the back to prop it up. It is about 7×12″ and about 1 inch thick without the easel kicked out. AND it’s weather resistant! AND it connects directly to your iPod! (note to self: iPod is NOT weather resistant…)

I am going camping this weekend, and I am stoked to get to try it out! It’s so compact! If I find a picture of it, I will post it. It’s just perfect for camping!

Brief Work Rant

Everyday, I eat lunch at my desk from 12:35 to 12:50 (when Politics Live comes on on ABCNewsNow.com…great little internet news show, btw). From 1:00 to 2:00 I work on shipping labels, shipping problems, shipping anything.

I do this everyday.

Yet, my father/boss just micromanaged me over the intercom at 12:45.

“How many packages have to be shipped today? Have you done it yet? Do you have labels? Huh? Huh? HUH??”

Seriously. I have a plan. I’m eating. Leave me alone.  Grr.

Onward and Upward

And…I am single again…

The neurologist is gone. I am slightly relieved. I was still having trouble getting over being taller than him in heels. I think everything else will have to be perfect about a guy for me to get over that. It just feels weird. My friends are just too dang tall.

He ended it with a text message. Very classy. He tried to make up for that the next day, but I had none of it. Sorry, text messages are for tiny bits of unimportant information. Or even mildly important information. They are not for asking me out (you will receive a return message of “Call me and ask that, please”) or for breaking up (you will lose all future attempts to be with me).

I am not upset about it. It was just a month. But jeez, a text?? And then when we did talk so that I could tell him how rude that was (he had called me to see if I was “ok”…as though I was heartbroken or something…get over yourself, buddy!) he tried to drag the conversation out like it had been a serious relationship. Um, if you thought the relationship was that important, that it required real deliberation to discuss the ending of it, then why did you use the callous method of texting to break it off?

I have been trying to figure out what happened. What REALLY ended it, and I think quite honestly, he was intimidated by a girl who could keep up with him. He always seemed more interested in the domestic things I was doing. Gardening, cooking…good wifely things…than in my career. He even said I would “make a good doctor’s wife.” Which at first, I took as a compliment, but now I think it was just condescending. He wasn’t looking for an equal, he was looking for a wife. He walked into my house for the first time and said, “Wow, this is a REAL person’s house.” Uh, yeah. What did you expect? A rat hole?

I think, in the end he was just looking for a little Wifey.

His loss, because he’s right, I would make a good doctor’s wife…and photographer, and writer, and business owner…