RUSH

Happy Fathers Day all.

For those of you who know me, you know that I have a particular affinity for the band Rush.  I first heard about Rush when I was a sophmore in high school.  I was dating a flute player at the time, so I started hanging out in the band room.  All of the drummers listened to this band called Rush.  I started listen to the group and I really liked them.  I got to know one of the drummer pertty well, Jim, and he lent me a video of a Rush concert called A Show Of Hands.

I took the video out to my car and started reading the back of the VCR box.  That was when I read that Rush was comprised of just three guys.  I was really impressed that three guys could make such complex music.  The more I listened to them, the more I liked them.  Their first album, self-title Rush was relased when I was four months old.  They relased their 19th original album, Snakes and Arrows last year.  The style of music has changed through the years, but it all carries the same spirit that makes it fun to listen to.

Of all the people I know who have heard Rush, I can put them all into one of two camps: I Love Rush or I Hate Rush.  (I am sure that I have met some people who are luke warm, that doesn’t make for a good blog post.  So I’ll follow the general example set by the government (all of them, not just the current) and pretend that they don’t exist so I can make my point much, much more dramatic that it really is.) There is also a nearly perfect correlation bewteen love and hate and musician, not musican.  I think you have to be a musician to really appreciate what they do.  Just like being a writer enhances your ablity to discern great writing.

This year marks the 20th year that I have been a Rush fan.  I hope to teach my kids how neat Rush is.  I don’t care if they don’t like Rush, but I will teach them to appreciate Rush.

And so it goes.

f

It’s Garbage!

 

A little update before we get down to business.  

I got our taxes done.  That was fun.  We are even getting a little bit of green back.  Work is going well.  We are not really seeing an improvement in the economy, but we aren’t seeing a decrease either.  I’ll take that.  

Noelle turns seven on Monday.  She has a blog now.  It is artbynoelle.wordpress.com

The matriarch of the family will be in town for a few days.  It has been over two years since I have seen her, so I am looking forward to the visit.  Ralphie will be in town for three weeks.  As usual, we are excited about that.

Joy has raised 2,605 of her 3,900 goal.  If you can, please donate to her cause.  You can check out her blog at birdtribird.wordpress.com for a link to her fund-raising site. 

The blog bug is currently napping while I draft new topics.  I usually go a few months without much and then explode for a month or so.  

Ok, on with the show.

There are six people in my house. Two thirty-somethings and four crumb snatchers. Between the six of us, we fill 1 60 gallon garbage can a week. Now that might sound like a lot, but a 60 gallon can is the smallest they have for the county. Each week I roll this thing out the curb and I am happy to know that there is still room. What is the secret? What about the rest of the waste of the house?

Let’s look at the kinds of waste generated. First there is green waste. These are food and compostable items. Next are the recyclables. Paper, plastics and glass. Finally, there solid waste. This is the stuff that ends up in the garbage can.

My compost pile in the backyard offers mute testimony to the amount of compostable items that we generate.  In boy scouts we had sign in the mess hall that read, ‘We Support Zero Ort’.  For the uninitiated, ort is food waste.  We don’t like to have any, but it happens.

The recyclables make up the majority of the volume of things that leave the house.  Cans, bottles, jars, paper and plastics go into a can in the kitchen and then out to the curb twice a month.  That is a 90 gallon can and there is rarely room.  

The rest is stuff that is not safe to compost or is not recyclable.  

So take some time and evaluate what comes in and what goes out of your home.  You’ll be surprised.  

And so it goes.

f

Happy New Years!

Well, tonight we say good-bye to a rather tumultuous year, at least for our clan.  We saw the loss of a job, an unanticipated move, the gain of a job, the blessing of a better place to live and the great blessing of another child.  There were also the incidental victories.  I got my second Bag ‘o Crap from Woot and I and won my fantasy football league. 

Looking back at the year, I feel the same way a forest must feel after a fire.  The fire hurt, but now there is room for growth and renewal.  In 2009 Sammy will start kindergarten and Mary will start pre-school.  I will continue (God willing) in my new job and Casey’s Speech-Pathology practice serving the Catholic Schools will grow.  We will wrap up the year with our first Christmas in Boise and our first Christmas in Idaho since Casey and I were married. 

We lost our dog, Cassie this year.  She was a good dog.  A good dog.  Noelle started wearing an eye patch to help with her Anisometropic Amblyopia.  For each day she wears her patch, she gets a gold dollar to use to buy a hamster.  The hamster won’t live as long as the dog (at least I hope not.  I don’t want a 16 year old hamster).

We are going to strive to cut our current garbage output from four bags a week to three bags.  We have cloth diapers for Leela and Mary will be potty-trained this year.  We tried last year, but it just didn’t take.  Too much going on. 

We replaced our dinner table one that will allow us to seat all six people and keep food on the table.  That may not sound like much, but it is really a huge deal to us.  Ralphie and Steve were nice enough to provide the table. 

Ralphie was able to spend a month with us while Leela finished cooking.  The kids loved having Grandma Ralphie around for so long.  So did we.  Mary is still asking, ‘Where did Ralphie go?’. 

This year my blog enters its third year and I will pass the 100 post mark.  I don’t know if that is really a big deal, but hey, I am running out things to say.

I hope all of you have a wonderful 2009 and that it is full of the Lord’s blessings.

And so it goes.

f

Pity Whiskey

Hi kids.

Sorry for the slow slow blog month.  Casey and I are waiting for the arrival of Leela Joy and the antcipation is a but distracting.  

But tonight, something else imporant is happening.  Not as imporant as the birth of your fifth child, but important none the less.  Tonight I finished my Pity Whiskey.  Some seven months have passed since mom gave me a 1.75l of Makers Mark the day I left that other job of mine.  Seven months.  

And so it goes.

f

Pity Whiskey

I’ve mentioned pity whiskey before.  This is the bottle of Makers Mark that my mother gives me when she comes over.  It is usually disguised as a poodle.  Long story there.  On April 18 she gave me a 1.5L of it.  You’re probably wondering what happened.  Here goes:

There have three large events of late.  One seemingly bad, another seemingly just as bad and the last seemingly bad depending on your perspective on life.  And I literally mean your perspective on life. 

Let’s start with the big one.  On April 18, my curent employer decided that they wanted to be my previous employer.  I can’t say I was very surprised.  One day I will tell you all that sorted tale.  So I got to come home and tell my wife that I had gotten the old heave ho.  My feelings were (still are) mixed.  I was not really thriving there.  I was little more than a junior analyst who was supposed to pound the round peg into the round hole.  Not at all what I was told I was going to be doing.  Nine months of that had a fairly predictable toll on me and out I went.  That 50’s heart-throb knows what happens when I get bored of a project.  HI-YA!

That is all I have to say about that.  More later.

Next, the house we are living in is about to become the house we were living in.  The lady we rent the house from decided to put it back on the market.  With our blessing.  Of course, that was before I had lost the ability to prove an income.  Ouch.  Cue Phillip J. Fry from Futurama: ‘Do refridgerators still come in the those big boxes?’ Bender: ‘Yah, but the rent is outrageous!’ 

I’m being melodramatic, but I just lost my job and my home!  (Sighs with the back of his hand on his forehead)  Honestly, I am not as concerned as maybe I should be.  What I seemingly take so lightly is a real problem for a great number of people.  It is times like this that a faith life comes in really handy.  Really, really handy.  I have taken the the opportunity to participate in Eucharistic Adoration, which is something I have longed to do for some time.  I have time to really look around and understand how lucky I am.  It could be worse.  I could have ALS. 

So finally, the third thing.  I know.  You are sitting there cringing.  What else happened?  Who died!?

No one died.  Someone lives.   I don’t if it is a he someone or a she someone.  I’ll let you know ’round mid-December. 

So here I sit, drinking my pity whiskey. 

And so it goes.

f