My brother just sent me an article about some new thinking concerning the causes of Crohn’s disease. Some British researchers have discovered evidence that it’s not an overactive immune system, but a weakened one that creates the inflamation. Something about blood rushing to the area of an infection, bringing the anti-bodies with it.

So now they’re thinking that Viagra might actually be a cure for Crohn’s disease. Great! No longer will I have problems with constantly feeling like I have to take a crap. But I’ll be walking around with a permanent hard on.

I didn’t know this was going on. I can’t believe it. Well maybe I can.

A funeral for a local soldier killed in Iraq was picketed by anti-gay protesters. They claim that God is killing American soldiers because the country tolerates gays. A photo in the paper showed them with a sign that said, “Thank God of IEDs.” I’m completely stunned by the hatefulness and heartlessness of these people who would use this ultimately personal and private event to spew their hateful message. In the name of Jesus. In the name of the Christianity that I was taught to believe was loving, gracious and forgiving.

There is a faction in the country that feels that if you are against the war, you’re unpatriotic and unsupportive of our troops. I’m of the opinion you can hate the war but love the soldiers. Whether you agree with the country’s decision or not, you have to respect the young men and women who put life and limb in danger because their country asked them to. I don’t see that protesting a war is unnecessary, and even harmful, to the country as being unpatriotic.

But I do see the actions of these Fred Phelps followers as unpatriotic, un-Christian, and hateful.

Well I survived the night. No reaction at all. No hives yet either.

I might get hives from my job today though.

I think I’m going to have Lobster for dinner tonight.

I’m alergic to shellfish. Shrimp, lobster, crab. It didn’t start until about 7 or 8 years ago. I don’t go into anaphalactic shock or anything, but the last time I was weazing and my face got pretty swollen. Mostly I just get hives for about five days. Which I guess is bad enough.

On the way home from working out tonight we stopped for take out Chinese. We ordere spring rolls and I had about half of one eaten when I realized it had shrimp in it. I don’t think I ate any, but I was about to bite into a big chunk of it when I realized what it was.

And now I’m sitting here waiting to see what will happen. I told Quinn that she could have my iPod.

I suppose that I’m one of the few artists that really likes exel spreadsheets. I’m fascinated by data and I love to chop it up and I love to figure out ways to make exel do my bidding. So over the years I’ve kept most of my personel records on spreadsheets that did fancy calculations, like if Mary takes 3 hours of personal time and 2.5 hours of previous year vacation, how much total time off does Mary have left?

More often than not, my records were a mess, I would forget to input the info in a timely manner and it was hard to actually reference back to them, since I often couldn’t remember where I save them or what I named them.

I’ve done a one eighty. I’ve discovered the organizational wonder of the 21st century! The three ring binder. I’m amazed at how much more quickly I can find information, how much cleaner my desk is and how much less time it takes me to get my timesheet and payroll crap done.

I wonder how many tasks that we’ve given over to computers are actually easier and faster the caveman analog way.

Last week I went to get a cup of coffee at the office. Someone had brought in a nice cannister of mixed nuts, I filled a styrofoam cup with coffee and another with nuts. I went back to my work and started going through my standard morning drill. I absentmindedly reached over for a handfull of nuts and poured coffee into my hand.

On Sunday Beck and I were at the club, I was riding the recumbant bike and she was getting on the treadmill. The machine she was on was squeaking, which caught my attention, then for some reason I looked away. I glanced back at her in time to see her go flying off the end of the treadmill and land on her ass. Fortunately only her pride was injured.

Monday night I went to a High School basketball game between two powerhouse teams, one from a small town and one from the inner city. We were at the city school’s gym. There was a couple behind us that were a little on the strange side. He was round and she was rail thin with long stringy graying hair and an amazingly craggy face that gave her the appearance of a comic book witch. Kind of urban hillbillies. A student ensemble came out to sing the New Fangled Spanner and were executing the anthem in beautiful harmony when Witchy Woman chimes in about two and a half tones sharp. She gets about six high pitched words out and I’m beginning to get that nails on chalkboard feeling when the baritone voice of her partner comes in with, “Shut Up.”

And to top it all off Dick Cheney went quail hunting.

I’m flying to Omaha today for a meeting tomorrow.
I really hate business travel. Airports, airplanes, rental cars, hotels, expense accounts…all of it. Hate it.

Plan59

Last night, Rebecca and I met our committment to hit the club on Friday nights. Work out after work, late dinner at home and a rental. I got through my routine and headed upstairs to the locker room, with a quick stop at the gym to watch a three on three game. I had just enough time to hit the whilpool.

I was sharing the facility with an older guy, must have been in his late sixties, a barrel chested man, kind of overwieght. For the sake of the narrative, let’s call him Tubby. As Minnisotans do, we started talking about the weather, which has been unseasonably warm, I think it hit 50 yesterday. It’s more likely to be -20 here at this time of year than 50. Of course this led to global warming and Tubby wasn’t so sure he was buying into that theory. He was speaking of the inherently cyclic nature of the climate and brought up the fact that we’d had a January thaw back in “oh-tree.”

“When?”

“Yah, oh-tree.” The “yah” is clipped, German, not drawn out like a Norsky. I’m thinking, and understand that I’m riding a major endorfin load, “Oh three, you’re nowhere near that old.” I don’t think I’d ever heard anyone refer to the third year of this century as “oh tree” before.

“I remember because I had some property over in Wisconsin that had a pond on it. I was clearing the snow off it to make a skating rink and just as I made the last pass the tractor went through the ice. In five feet of water.”

“Did you end up leaving it ’til spring?”

“No, I got’er out. I wanted to get a wrecker, but all kinds of fish houses had gone through the ice too. They were chargin’ a thousand dollars to pull them out, and I sure wasn’t gonna pay a thousand (did he say “a towsand?”) dollars to get that old tractor out. But I got it out.”

“How?”

“It just came to me. I kept thinking about how to get it out and one moring I just woke up and it hit me. I knew it would freeze again so I put posts in by the wheels and jacked it up to the water level, then when it froze over again I just drove her right off.” He included an explanation of the finer points of his technique, but he was vague and I couldn’t visualize how he accomplished this, other than “the bucket” and chains were involved. I was very impressed with his inginuity but even more so with his ability to accomplish something that must have been a hellacious amount of work. I’ve been in similar situations and it’s brutal for a young man.

So the question is, was he pulling my leg?