Monday, January 23, 2006

I LOVE THE 80s




To copy His Greatness,(aka Humorist Mike) I post today for your viewing pleasure a relic from my past. Back in tha' day when I was in college (hint: it's before the 90s) there was a local artist/pseudo-activist named Mark Heckman who created a series of sometimes humorous billboards promoting this cause or that. Often they were regarding serious issues like medical waste dumping, the result of which would wash-up on the nearby shores of Big Blue.

As this picture indicates, he's not really promoting a cause other than himself on this particular example. But OH MY! how ironic the choices he made must seem given today's history. The times, they really are a-changin'. . . .
(My apologies for the grainy, historic look to this picture. It was taken with a disk camera [Anybody remember those?] The film is about the size of a candy dot, so by the time you blow it up to viewable size you're at about a gazillion times magnification.)

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Folks, it's going to be another quiet week from Jim (go ahead, enjoy the silence!) Got some travelling to do, hopefully it goes better than LAST week (NWA, get yer sh!t together RIGHT NOW!) Peace all, and maybe some prosperity too.

Toodles-

Saturday, January 14, 2006

There's possibly a chance. Maybe.

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Reading Erin's latest post tonight reminded me of the fun I had watching the weatherman on the local station just this evening. I really like the guy, he's pretty steady-eddy even when he's delivering news of the apocalypse from the 'Storm Center'. Sometimes I just get tired of all the BREAKING NEWS! SHOCKING! garbage all the time (good band, Garbage.) Back to tonight- he's rolling out the 5 day shortcast and I swear he says "perhaps" about 6 or 8 times in a span of just seconds. SECONDS, I TELL YOU! I think he's finally cracked under the pressure of not being able to tell what the heck's going to happen tomorrow, or in the next 10 minutes for that matter (it's a Michigan thing,) so he's peppering his weathercasts with words of doubt to allow him to weasel his percentages higher. (See, Erin? Percentages.) I wonder if he's like Jim Carrey's part in Dumb&Dumber- you know, "So you're tellin' me there's a chance." THAT kind of optimism.

To help my boy out, I hereby offer a brief list of CYA lingo in the hopes that he can more effectively cover his tracks:

  • maybe
  • mayhap
  • perchance
  • debatable
  • doubtful
  • indefinite
  • arguable
  • questionable
  • borderline
  • chancy
  • clouded (oh, the double-entendre)
  • doubtful
  • dubious
  • inconclusive
  • hazy
  • misty
  • cloudy
  • unsettled
  • unstable
  • FANTASTICAL! (for those really special storms)
Good night all. Or maybe not.

Friday, January 13, 2006

Good Ol' Sol

It is truly amazing what a sunny day can do to knock S.A.D. back a few steps. It's freaking unbelievable what a sunny day that's 50 degrees can do. I can't even imagine how weird that must make the wonderful folks in places like San Diego and Key West feel to hear someone excited about 50 degrees. Probably about as weird as I felt one time down in Orlando when I sat on a bench in front of our hotel reading the paper, enjoying the 8a.m. sunshine in a t-shirt and jeans, when I looked over and noticed the valet shivvering in a buttoned-up shearling jacket and knit skully. Ferreal!

Today was one of those days that, no matter how much stress is building at work, all was right in the world thanks to our good friend the sun. Even the gloomy December statistics I heard today couldn't dampen nature's enthusiasm: Less than 10% of possible sunshine, 18 days without one minute of sunshine, and we've had 50 straight days with measurable precipitation. That last one is a record-breaker; the old record was only 35 consecutive days.

I'm starting to give some serious thought to a career change and becoming a shrink, there has GOT to be some serious money being spent on couch sessions around here. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Peace.

And sunshine!

Monday, January 09, 2006

The Magic Number is 15

Numbers are great. Just ask my son, who can tell you that a quadrangle is a polygon with 4 sides, and has many varieties: rectangle, rhombus, square, parallelogram and trapezoid. G-ZUS! I can't believe they're teaching this shtuff to 5th graders nowadays. But all props to the fine concerned folks over at his elementary school, they're truly a great group.

When I was a kid, for some reason I always got #13. No matter how much I told myself that 13 isn't a cursed number, I plainly SUCKED at basketball. So if you think 13 is just another number, change your errant ways and avoid all things 13. And take a look at the elevator panel the next time you're at a hi-rise hotel.

Magic Johnson is one of those cool dudes I really would like to meet. 32 is a number I will forever associate with His Greatness. Man, my Spartans were awesome back then. They didn't look anything like that today.

Today, we finally saw the sun after 15 days without a single second of sunshine. 15 days people! Living this close to Big Blue, we come to appreciate the moderating effects of all that holy water during the summertime, but in the winter we really have to pay some bills. We were getting some giant snow until just before Christmas and then someone turned up the heat and all that stopped. I have to apologize to Jason and Beth for blaming all our melting snow on their Christmas trip to Nebraska, I was out of my mind. Strangely, the wind calmed and clouds just kept coming. Sadly, I was looking forward to another day of Cloudcuckooland as this would be day #16, tying or breaking the record depending on who you ask. I'm a firm believer in SAD, and it was painfully obvious as I was psychotically gleeful in the bright moments following old Sol's re-emergence. I was clinging to the hope of another 24 hours without sunshine so I could participate in a record-breaking event, and I could look back over the years and recall how I was there that day, January 8th, 2006, when many were convinced there really is no God.

The hits just keep on comin'

So yesterday was my family's Christmas thing, and it started surreal enough. After driving almost 2 hours in freezing rain leftovers, unpacking all the goodies from our car, parking it and finally getting my butt inside, I made the rounds exchanging pleasantries with the 20 or so members who were already there. Nearly finished with my loop I spy my dad at the end of the drive , one foot in the road, waving to a fire truck to turn into our driveway.

"Odd," methinks. "Why is a firetruck pulling into the drive?" I ask. Well, the answer was my Uncle had fainted. As the paramedics were tending to him he went down again and they could barely find a pulse. An ambulance came and they struggled with the gurney as he was in the kitchen at the table. The good thing was one of my brothers is a P.A. and was taking good care of him til the help arrived, and also knew quite a bit of his medical info. I'm not sure if this was because of a close relationship with my Uncle, or if this was a result of other negatives in my cousin's family recently, but I don't really care.

The crazy thing is just over a week ago, one of his sons had some pain in his chest and went to the hospital; they found 5 blockages and operated on him the very next morning. My brother said to me a few days ago that he told each member of their family to get some tests done as this type of heart issue is genetic- my uncle's first heart-attack came at the age of 32. He's had 2 or 3, and at least 2 heart surgeries. The scary thing is one of his siblings has already had the tests after speaking with my brother, (he won't tell me what the results were, but he's also sworn me to secrecy that I even know the cousin had the test at all.) I hope for the best, but at the same time I'm a bit uneasy with the serious undertones of the secrecy. With luck, maybe the risks can be greatly reduced through diet, exercise, and our good friend chemistry.

Uncle is feeling much better, but will probably need to have a pacemaker. Thankfully, everyone was able to keep the kids distracted; I would hate for them to have had a strong memory of a bad thing happening at Christmas.

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