Shallow Thinker

In my previous post, I detailed how I was able fend off the dragons from my daughter’s nightmares.  Recently, I was reminded that the story begins similarly for families all across the world.  Somewhere, a boy cries out for his mother, but she is unable to calm his fears.  A girl beckons for her father to rescue her, but her dragons cannot be tamed or dismissed with a silly story.  The nightmares will haunt these children well beyond bedtime.

Mercer University was (and still is) small enough that notable people were known across campus.  Jenny was one of those.  The year prior to my entrance to Mercer, Jenny served as a teaching assistant (TA) to a class of freshmen that included a brilliant young lady named Kelley.  When I stepped onto campus, I heard the name, knew who she was, but our paths rarely crossed.  Jenny graduated, moved on.  I did become friends with her sister, Nikki, though.  So on occasion, I heard the name.  In my world, she was nothing more than a face in the crowd, or a word in the conversation.

A few years ago, I found Kelley sitting at her computer with tears in her eyes.  She had been following a number of stories on-line and discovered that Jenny and her husband, Tre’, had just found out that their oldest daughter was diagnosed with cancer.  With passion and care, Kelley has followed their story from the sidelines.  One evening, Kelley read aloud to me one of the most heart-wrenching, poetic posts that I have ever encountered.  Jenny wrote that Catie was no longer able to fight the cancer that had ravished her young body.  We did not have words for each other, so we sat in silence.  Both of us shed tears for a little girl that we had never met.

I cannot pretend to wrestle with the questions that Jenny and Tre’ have had to handle.  My heart has never encountered the range of emotions that they have experienced.  What I do know is that they are two very brave and passionate individuals.  Their story is brutal yet beautiful.  Their experiences are unique yet there are thousands more experiencing the same thing each day.  When many would fall and surrender to the weight of the trials, they stood up and began to roar in the face of adversity.  As they have mourned the loss of their daughter, they have picked up the weapons that they’ve been given and are continuing the fight against childhood cancer.

On my blog, I write about a bunch of silliness and nonsense because that’s mostly what is inside of me.  But there is one thing that I am passionate about.  I think that each child should be able to experience their childhood with joy, innocence, and passion.  Unfortunately, this world brings them sorrows, it robs their innocence, and it offers them indifference.  But a young girl named Catie taught me that seeds of joy and laughter always remain.  Innocence can be cultivated on many fronts.  Passion runs deep in the veins of these little ones.

Whether it is through cancer research, adoption, or spending time with those in your community, please give to the children that so desperately need it.

http://catiescureclassic.com/

This weekend carried a lot of activity. On Friday morning, my mom took the girls to her house and left Kelley and I alone in the kitchen with buckets of paint and a few free hours. We’ve been working on our kitchen for over a month and this past weekend was a push to get it much closer to finished. On Friday morning we painted. That afternoon, we painted. In the evening, Kelley allowed me a break for some supper and a movie. After the movie, she forced me back to work with more painting.  Around 11:30, she let me go to sleep but told me that I’d better get up early in the morning for more work.  I think I cried myself to sleep.

A Preview Picture

Saturday morning I was up with the sun and back to painting. By lunchtime, we were far enough along that I could start working on the trim. Mr. Rickie was nice enough to not only bring over his tools, but to stay and help me get most of the trim work done. By the time we were too tired to continue at 4:00 in the afternoon, the kitchen looked much better than when we started. So, we loaded up the car and went to meet the girls at my parents house.

When we arrived just before bedtime, the girls told us of all the special things that their grandparents spoiled them with. Kelley and I were both very jealous that we’d missed out on the fun, but I suppose that’s a part of growing up. It’s good to be able to let the girls go off and not worry about them.  We spent the rest of the weekend with my parents consuming as much home-cooking and Dairy Queen as we could and then hit the road Monday morning.

On the way home, we spent a couple of hours at Imagine It! The girls had a blast.  I even got to play with moon sand!  On the final leg of the trip, we stopped by a Chick-Fil-A Dwarf House in Jonesboro.  The only complaint we heard the entire trip home was “I donn wanna go home.  I go back teuw GG’s howse.”

Work started back yesterday and my time at home has been split between playing in the rain and hanging cabinet doors.  As of right now, I think that the kitchen is about 96% finished.  (The last 4% will probably drag on for another few weeks, though.)  So after a long, full weekend, I’m now back into the routine of work.  Oh yeah, and classes for the summer semester start tonight.  Having two courses spread out over 15 weeks was tough last semester, so I’ll take it easy and do two courses crammed into 10 weeks this summer.  Maybe Kelley will have finished the kitchen by the time I get done with classes.

There’s an old saying about how men piddle about all day and a woman’s work is never done.  I’m beginning to realize the truth in that.  I think that a woman’s work is never done not because of the amount of work that she does, but because she can’t make up her mind!  (I’m just joking….or am I?)

We’re in the middle of making some modifications to our kitchen.  New tile, new counters, new paint on the walls, refinishing the cabinets, and some new trim.  I absolutely love to do projects on my own,  but wisdom prevailed and we got professionals for the tile and the counter.  (I’ll post pictures when the whole thing is done.)  Unfortunately, we’re now stuck on finding the perfect colors for the cabinets, trim  and walls.  We started with a light, creamy yellow for the cabinets and trim and then painted several shades of khaki (brown?) on the wall…as well as a couple of greens.  Nothing took.  “Too washed out”, “Too green”, “we’re looking for more depth of color”.  After another late night session with a paint expert (thanks, Sheri!), I headed back out for more samples this morning.  Tonight, I’ll put a slight-cream white on the cabinets and trim and a gray on the walls.   Sheri would tell you that the cabinet color has some slight red in it.  If I held a card up to you, you’d say that it is white.  Sheri says that the gray is blueish.  You’d still call it gray.  That’s why Sheri is our consultant and not you.

At any rate, tonight we’ll try some new colors and see how they stick.  The only caveat to this adventure is that my parents are taking the girls this weekend so that Kelley and I can get all the painting done.  We might just have to spend the whole weekend painting rainbows on our wall in search of the perfect color.  I’m also afraid that the girl at the paint counter thinks that I’m trying to flirt with her because of the frequency of my visits.  Heck, if it would get us the perfect color, I might actually try it.

A little over a year ago, I built a sandbox.  The task seems simple enough, but it was still noteworthy.  Everything I read told me that treated wood was a bad idea.  The theory is that if you use untreated wood, it’s OK because it will take longer for the wood to rot than what the life of the sandbox would be with little ones, anyhow.  It sounded good to me.  And, I read it on the internet, so it must be true.  Right?

Apparently, the writers of these articles did not live in the south where termites abound.  (I’ll bet that you know where this story is going, don’t you?)  While I had some free time last weekend, Kelley’s dad and I picked up a load of sand to refresh the sand in the current sandbox.  I mentioned that I might rebuild the sandbox (because I need some extra projects to do) but Kelley told me that the old one was perfectly fine.  So, we emptied the sand…and noticed some extreme wood decay in some places.

Yes, I filled it up more later. There's no sense in over-building a sandbox if you can't over fill it.

I picked at the spots and magically, termites appeared.  Kelley made an executive decision that a new sandbox would be necessary.  (Projects are only fun if they’re my idea.  This one now transformed from “fun project” to “arduous task.”)

So, here’s attempt #2 at a sandbox.  This time, I used decking boards for the sides and a few treated pieces to help it hold the shape.  Of course, while I built the box, the sand just sat in the back of the truck.  So, naturally, the girls enjoyed the truck sandbox more than they’ve ever enjoyed sand before.  In fact, when I started filling up the new sandbox, Butterfly sighed, “Oh daddy, maybe we can just play in the truck from now on.”  It’s good to know that my efforts are appreciated.

I like to working outside in the yard.  One of the best kind of tireds is one from having accomplished a lot of yard work.  There are only two problems with this.  (1) I’m allergic to about 98.3% of outside and (2) I usually have no clue what I’m doing.  The clouds parted momentarily this weekend, so I seized the opportunity breathe in some more allergens and to demonstrate my lack of landscaping skill/knowledge.

We have a faucet by our deck that likes to leak on occasion.  Because of this, water pools around the area and provides a safe haven for weeds and mud.  An area that originally looked very pretty with river rocks and landscaping timbers has turned into a mucky mess over the past 2-3 years.  With my yard tools and my “helpful” daughters by my side, I decided to lay some stepping stones to help with the problem.

The first order of action was to remove the old rocks and weeds.  I actually started this last weekend, but went inside at one point to run a small errand and didn’t return.  The vacant rocks and torrential rains made this area a nice mud puddle.  So, Butterfly helped me get a bunch of sand to help even out the ground and give me something to work with.

There are several “secrets” to laying stones in the yard like this.  One of these is having an even surface.  I know that somewhere in my brain, I can figure out a way to make a surface even.  However, my brain wasn’t available for this project, so I went with the “rake-the-sand-until-it-looks-good” technique.  For your home projects, I recommend a different technique.  Doesn’t matter which one it is, it just needs to be different than this one.

The lattice that is visible along the bottom portion of the deck is actually a door.  It hinges at the top and allows me (as well as small critters) to get to the crawl space under the house.  The entry is  just beyond the view of these photographs.  Unfortunately, the door was sized for reaching the ground, so adding stones keeps the door from opening.  I did a quick feasibility study and concluded that ripping the door off would be a good solution.  I hope to make a smaller door and install it later.  I also hope someone will hand me a million dollars later this afternoon.  I don’t expect either of these to happen.

After I “leveled” the sand and put down some landscaping fabric, it was time to put some rocks out.  This was easy because it required more grunt work than brains.  For a real stone installation, the installer would have some type of grout between the rocks.  I, however, do not think that I’m all that great of an installer and I fully expect something to go wrong in the near future.  So, instead of concrete grout, I decided that sand would work.  It fills in the cracks and allows water to seep/drain as needed.  More importantly, it’s easy to work with when I have to pull the stones up to fix something that I discover later down the road.  This is part of the project when Butterfly’s attention waned towards the playground and Ladybug decided to join me.

Ladybug grabbed her child-sized wheel barrow and followed me to get a load of sand.  I put some in for her to carry back, but she quickly caught on to my ploy and said “It too heavy, Daddy.  Daddy carry it.”  We made it back and while I put sand around the area, Ladybug busied herself by hiding my tools in the sand, followed by “making cookies” with the nearby dirt and rocks.  She continually offered these to the dogs as a snack.

Prior commitments caused me to stop a little before the project was completed.   Here’s what it looked like when we put the tools down.   Pippin doesn’t seem to mind it too much.  Ladybug is still trying to feed Merry some of her sand cookies.

Have I mentioned that I’m trying to train our dogs a little?  (I think I have….yep, here it is.)  In order for us to maintain proper control, it’s probably a lot easier for the dogs to be healthier, and happier.  And, for them to be healthier and happier, they need regular exercise.

Since my first attempt, the walks have been tedious and difficult.  The dogs still pull (though not as bad) and I still try to correct them.  My shoulders have been aching due to the constant corrections.  Some portions of the walks will involve more stops than rush hour in Atlanta.  Other portions will as smooth the pick-up lines my brother used during college.

As of right now, I haven’t given up on the dogs (though I’ve come very close) and they haven’t learned the proper technique yet.  However, we have noticed that they obey commands much more frequently during the non-walk times of the day.  Kelley takes the girls outside when the weather cooperates and has commented that the dogs have become more submissive and calm around the children, as well as other guests.

Butterfly has even gained some control over Pippin (the fluffy one).  She’ll tell him to sit and he plops down.  If he doesn’t, she informs him in no uncertain terms that she won’t pet him until he does.  Somehow, he understands this reasoning and takes a seat.  She then showers him with petting.  Ladybug doesn’t wait for them to obey, nor does she limit herself to pets.  She hugs and kisses a while they sit back and enjoy the attention.

So, what’s the moral of the story?  If you want your dogs to learn to sit, teach them to go for a walk!  Not to worry, I’ve decided to send some money Cesar Millan’s way for some instructional DVD’s.  There isn’t a problem that can’t be solved by throwing some money at it.

If you decided that you wanted to save the planet, I should not be on the top of your list to assist in the effort.  I know people who are very environmentally conscious and can always identify ways to reduce waste.  There are tons of excuses that I could give for why I’m not capable at this, but the fact of the matter is that this type of thing hasn’t been one of my priorities and I’m not well-practiced at it.  Recently, my wife has been helping me to identify our recyclable items.  She commonly rescues metals or plastics from our trashcan and gives me a stern scolding.  Her efforts are slowly taking their hold on me and I’m starting to recognize what items can go into our tiny blue bin.

Our increased recycling awareness, however, has hit a small hurdle.  Our poor little bin can not contain all of the good-hearted materials that we put into it.  The recycling truck comes every other week and within those two weeks, our bin is overflowing.  (Yes, I’m aware that there’s another problem here regarding the amount of stuff we go through.  Baby steps, people…baby steps.)  So, in my brand new earth-aware mentality, I decided to build something to hold all of our goods.  Here are the requirements that I had:

• relatively cheap
• easily movable to the road for pick-up
• must have separate compartments for glass, paper, plastic, and metal  (the workers currently have to sort stuff out as they go)
• must allow the workers to easily empty each compartment

With these requirements, and about an hour of free time, I put together the following masterpiece of ecosystem responsibility -

I was feeling good about my project…until I started thinking about it.  That wood came from some tree somewhere.  Keeping trees living is a good thing.  Cutting them down is bad.  And what about the petroleum and the waste-intensive process used to make those plastic bins?  Not good, either.  With friends like me, our environment doesn’t need any enemies.  There is one small victory in this - at least I thought about it before I went forward with my plans to make it self-propelled with a gas powered engine.

Shallow Thinker - saving the world, one small disaster at a time

My Father-in-Law has gotten me very interested in a new TV show.  Unfortunately, our cable doesn’t have that channel.  (I’m such a cheapskate that our cable isn’t even called “basic”, it’s called “limited basic.”)  So, I’ve has to listen to the FiL talk about this show where some guy trains dogs with magic.  When we visited their house a couple of weekends ago, I got to see it for myself.  Sure enough, the guy is magic.  Problematic dogs immediately follow his commands.  (Well, they do on TV, anyhow.  I don’t know how much they edit out of the show, so I’ll just assume that the transformation is instantaneous.)

Well, Cesar and my father-in-law have inspired me.  Our dogs are very loving and calm…except when we attempt to take them for a walk.  They turn into sled dogs training for the Iditarod.  It has become such a hassle that we’ve just stopped trying.  I know that they need their exercise, but it seems to be not worth the trouble.  But, like I said, I’m inspired now.  I have spent a few hours over the past few days working with the dogs and trying to train them to walk.

In my short time as a dog trainer, I have decided that Cesar Milan definitely possess some supernatural dog-training skills because our transformation has not been instantaneous.  Heck, I can’t even tell if there’s been any transformation.  I’ve looked over the site and have seen some things that I’ve been doing wrong.  A neighbor even stopped and talked with me yesterday and gave me some hints.  (Was it that obvious?  Geez, I must stink at this thing.)

So cast your vote here.  Will I succeed in training the dogs or will I give up?  Get your votes in early and you might get a prize….maybe a picture of the dogs dragging me down the street or something.  If you’d prefer to give helpful hints, you can do that, too.

This weekend is an odd occurrence.  Kelley has decided to take the girls to visit her parents and has left me behind.  I think that she would prefer me to go, but there are a couple of engagements that I have that prevent me from being able to go.  As of 4:20pm on Friday, I have cleared out all of the work that was looming over my weekend and I’m looking out over an open schedule.  Of course, I’m still on the hook if the boss calls me, so I’m not out of the woods, but if everything continues as it is now, I can get some stuff done.  Here’s the plan:

Friday Evening
-Cut the grass
-wire an attic exhaust fan
-go listen to my friend Rob and his band “Deacons of Disaster” at CJ’s

Saturday
-make a video for church…it’s supposed to show on Sunday.  I should probably start soon.
-clean the past year’s worth of yard debris
-construction project to fit a freezer in our closet
-yard work to remove pebbles and put down stepping stones
-try to watch a little football when I sit down for a breather
-repair a few random holes that I’ve put into walls (it’s a hobby)

Sunday
-Rest
-Gather with some college friends for a birthday party
-welcome Kelley and the girls home in the evening
-watch the sunset on the perfect weekend.

That’s what I hope will happen.  Here’s what I expect to happen.

Friday Evening
-get supper
-sit on the couch
-fall asleep early

Saturday
-cut the grass
-get an e-mail from the boss about work
-work from mid-morning through the evening
-eat supper (something fast, greasy, and heart-attack inducing)
-remember video and work until midnight to make it
-forget to save, computer crash, scream at empty house

Sunday Morning, Early
-in the wee hours of the morning, redo Video
-take video to church with coffee and little sleep
-go back home, do more work
-Greet Kelley and the girls when they come home in the evening
-wonder what happened to the weekend

So there it is. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it?  Want to come over and watch?

*EDITOR’S NOTE: It’s now 4:45 (11 minutes after I originally posted this) and I didn’t sneak out of the office soon enough…I got pulled in to do some more work. *sigh* I sure wish someone would go cut my grass…hint, hint.

A clothes dryer is a wonderful thing.  You put in wet clothes, apply lots of electricity, and out come dry clothes.  In my house, this is a necessity.  (I’m allergic to 97% of the things outside, so a clothes line is only to be used when Kelley is really mad at me.)  So, when the dryer doesn’t dry, what do you do?

About 6 months to a year ago, Kelley called some random person and they came out and cleaned out our dryer vent.  Immediately afterward, the magical drying process was restored.  Was the wife happy with this?  NO!  She demands that the vent remain unclogged at the dryer functional all times.  Is there no pleasing this woman?

I’m as frugal as the next person, (assuming that the next person is indeeed equal in frugality to me….if not, then forget that I mad that assertion) so I like to save a buck.  I don’t want to call our this random guy to clean my vent every six months.  Wouldn’t you know it, Lowe’s had the solution for me.  The LintEater hooks up to your drill and is supposedly used to clean out your dryer vent.  Apparently this is only true in houses other than my own.  Here’s the brief synopsis of what happened, although these events took the better part of a Sunday afternoon and Monday evening.

1. Hooked up the little brush attachment, ran into the vent.  Got it hung up somewhere in the middle.
2. Removed the brush, replaced the tip with the “clog removal tool”
3. Ran the clog removal tool through the entire vent.
4. Inspected the opening on the other end…yep.  There’s the tool….no clog removed, though.
5. Attached the brush, and pulled the thing back through the vent.
6. Noted that very little lint came out.
7. Tried dryer, yep, it blows hot air.
8. Hooked up the dryer to the vent, turned it on, checked the outlet….nothing.
9. Rehooked the brush thingy on, pushed it back down through the vent.
10. Checked the back end.  Hello, brush.  Still no lint removed.  Maybe this thing actually does “eat” the lint.
11. Pulled back through for good measure….still nothing.

So, apparently the LintEater is designed to sneak around the lint and leave it undisturbed.  While interesting, it’s not very helpful.  So, I did what any other engineer would do in this situation….I “improved” the design.

1. Used washers and bolts to attach a rag to the “system.”
2. Pushed the thing down until it got clogged.
3. Pulled it out and marveled at the amount of lint that was removed.  Are we missing a sweater?
4. Came up with a brilliant idea…
5. Ran the “clog removal tool all the way through the vent.
6. Excitedly attached the rag to the dryer side.
7. Went to the exhaust side, hooked up the drill, and pulled.  The theory is that it would be a lot easier to pull the rag through the vent than to push it.

Apparently my calculations did not take into account the fact that there would be a lot of lint in the vent.  When the rag got beyond reach from either end, the nifty “Dryer Vent Cleaning System” broke.  And not just “hey, that’s unfortunate” kind of break.  It was broken at the precise location where the rag was firmly planted into the middle of my dryer vent…and I couldn’t reach it.

I was so mad that I ripped the pieces I could get out of the vent and flung them as hard as I could.  Apparently, the “Dryer Vent Cleaning System” was not designed for prolonged flights and fell a few feet from where I was standing.  Fortunately, after I’d settled down and my wife assured me that I was still a man, I was able to use some other tools to get the rag out.  More importantly, though, I still had the original packaging…and I knew where Lowe’s was.

Morale(s) of the story:

• If you need to avoid lint, I recommend the LintEater.  It knows exactly how to sneak around the lint and come out clean as a whistle on the other side.
• The customer service person that was working at our Lowe’s last night is awesome.  Of course, I think she probably knew that I’ve probably spent enough money there to fund her college and her retirement.  But, she accepted our return and fully refunded our money.
• It’s difficult to take out your frustration on little flexible rods.
• Our house contains magical lint-attracting pipes.
• I’m installing a new dryer vent this weekend.

CNN recently published an article that discussed how much more likely you are to get a promotion if you dress nice than if you don’t.  It went on to say that the sun rises in the east and that politicians sometimes lie.  (Perhaps the last sentence isn’t true, but it’s just as obvious.)  The premise is that you dress for the job that you want, not the job that you have.

I delivered a presentation today, so I dolled myself up all nice and pretty.  After looking in the mirror, I’ve decided that I haven’t really dressed for the job I want.  I’ve either dressed to be a sales rep or a waiter at Red Lobster.  This isn’t the look I was going for.  I should have worn Bermuda shorts and a Hawiian shirt because the job I want is to be a retired millionare living in the Bahamas.  Last time I dressed for the job that I wanted, my boss told me that an NFL jersey and shoulder pads were not appropriate for our work environment.

I love to work on the house or in the yard. There’s this feeling of accomplishment when a task is done. I stand back and look at my work and say “eh, not bad.” Prior to taking on a task, my wife never fails to ask “Are you sure you can do this?” And it’s not the supportive type of question. It’s the kind that really says “I don’t want a big hole in my house.” So, finishing a task not only makes me feel good, it gives me a bit of vindication for having my aptitude questioned. Granted, I occassionally give her reason to question, but that is not the point of the post, so please stop dwelling on the negative….hater.

There’s one area that I can not stand to work….in the crawl space. I’d rather work in the hot attic or out in the 103 degree heat more than I would under the cool, damp, dark….scary, spider-laden, death-trap of a crawl space.

Guess what I had to do this past weekend…

I crawled under the house to see what the problem was with the dryer vent. Sure enough, the pipe had worked itself apart. Or maybe it was pulled apart by the monsters that lives under there. As I crawled around trying to find a decent way to approach the pipes, I kept feeling non-existent spiders and bugs crawl over me. After a few minutes, I trained myself to ignore these things that weren’t trying to eat me alive.

At one point, I was sure I heard something behind me, but I kept working. And then, as plain as day, I felt something cold and wet on my leg. This could not be my imagination. I wanted to turn around and see what it was, but I didn’t want to do it so fast that I freaked out this thing and have it bite me. Slowly, I turned and pointed my flashlight into the beady eyes of this massive creature. Pippin lifted his cold nose from my leg, greeted my flashlight by licking my face, and then went back to exploring the dark underground.

As luck would have it, I couldn’t fix the thing without having to go buy some parts from Lowe’s and then crawl back under there again. It’s amazing that is wasn’t quite as scary the second time when I knew that my furry companion was down there with me. I guess that’s why they’re “man’s best friend.” I know my wife certainly wouldn’t have gone under there with me. And even if she did, we’d probably still be under the house with her asking “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”