A Striking Image

Anybody else notice the striking resemblance last week between Kathleen Sebelius and Rotwang's evil counterfeit - the Machine Man from Metropolis?

Probably the most striking image I saw in the news last week was of Kathleen Sebelius manifesting a left-eye problem. If you haven’t seen Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, you should watch the 1927 silent film masterpiece, and then reflect upon the images above. Yoshiwara, anyone?

Chattanoogan Identity Card Photos

Identikit standard Indo-European binary typing stereoscopy

Shopping Trip

I’d planned to drive to the university at Murfreesboro to use the library Saturday, and Caution-Lady said she wanted to go along to do some shopping – Halloween treats for the kids in her class, and a costume for Seventy-Six, use a gift card at Target. Turned out I was able to find the resources I needed online and full-text, so I decided I wouldn’t make the drive. Caution-Lady received the news with a distant, angry, sad look on her face. She’d been looking forward to the trip, prefers to shop distant locales with company, and for some reason really likes it when I go shopping with her. We ate an early lunch and hit the road.

At Toys-R-Us we looked for the costume Caution-Lady had decided Seventy-Six should wear for Halloween, but were unable to find it. She bought some Pixie-Stix candy treats for her classroom, and I picked out cylume sticks for Seventy-Six to play with. Brightly colored and graphics-rich packaged toys appealed to him. A large toy truck in a case that transforms, moves about, and speaks at the touch of a button was one of his favorites. Each time after it completed its routine, the little guy emphatically pointed his finger at it by way of saying, “Again!” We also got him a child-sized toy broom that’s still a little too big for him. He likes to help sweep the house, and we want to encourage him to spend time while he’s under our roof to help carry out the chores necessary to maintain a home. I keep thinking he’ll accidently stick the real broom’s handle through the glass on a hutch, or into a ceiling light-fixture, or knock the photos off the piano. I’ve taught him already to hit toy balls across the floor with his small broom – like golf or polo.

At Target we were likewise unable to find the costume Caution-Lady wanted. Instead, we spent our gift-card on one of those umbrella strollers. Seventy-Six is still too young to walk everywhere with us, so it’ll be a handy addition to Whitecar’s trunk.

Finally, the Cautious One wanted to visit The Avenue, a sort of outdoor mall near Manson Pike Trailhead on the Stones River.  A row of stores specializing in clothing and accessories for babies and toddlers might have the right Halloween costume for Seventy-Six.  Alas, no joy.  I waited in the car with Seventy-Six giving him a snack of Kix cereal.  He didn’t seem to care that we hadn’t been able to find anything for him to wear Halloween.  We played with a hard plastic ball his aunt, Jennifer, had given him at Christmastime or for his birthday.  We counted individual pieces of cereal.  Eventually my wife returned to the car having found nothing suitable.

“(Another teacher whose name I’ve forgotten) said there’s a Halloween costume store here, but I don’t see it,” Caution-Lady said with a hint of distress in her voice.

“I’ll drive out this way, and maybe we’ll see it,” I said, “You look out for it, and I’ll try to make sure I don’t hit (any pedestrians with Whitecar).”

We found the store – a semi-big-box retail space that had evidently been sitting vacant until rented temporarily to house the “Spirit Halloweeen” store.  Adults young and middle-aged, families with elementary and older age children were walking into the store from the parking lot with facial expressions set to denote happy expectation.  We parked the car and went in, carrying Seventy-Six.  The decor was pretty much a Zombie/Satanic motif with red-eyed monsters and graveyard sets that included dead toddlers and babies clambering about in rotting green tones.  Caution-Lady tried to distract Seventy-Six, who didn’t seem to notice the store’s preoccupation with the filth of decay and the one-night-a-year hope of a devilish and horribly incomplete resurrection of the dead.  It struck me that said preoccupation is about as wholesome as and a lot like playing with feces – the waste products left behind when life departs.

Anyway, that store didn’t have anything suitable either, and we left it pretty quickly.  Apparently we’re not as big on the Halloween spirit-thing as a lot of other people in Middle Tennessee.  A pity I’d left my camera at home – this post should have some illustrations.

Back at the house, Caution-Lady bid on some costumes on Ebay, and eventually bought one.  We’ll see whether it arrives in time.

Some Pionier 450 S Frame Photos

I’ve already posted most of these in a Facebook Album, and may also put them in an album at Folding Kayaks website.

As you look at some of these photos, you’ll see what appears to be a powdery residue on the keel. Either the hullskin is turning to powder, or talcum powder was used when the boat was last assembled in order make eventual disassembly easier.

My blog stats show that two people have already downloaded the assembly instructions for this boat – happy to know there are some others interested in assembling a Pionier 450 S.

Completed stern assembly

This is how the cross-braces attach at the keel inboard frame Nos. 1 and 7.

Interesting features of the Pionier 450 S frame are cross-braces running diagonally from keel at stem and stern up to gunwales fore and aft the cockpit

Completed bow assembly

Bow assembly seen from the side

Stern assembling, looking astern

Here are both bow and stern assemblies next to one another. Yes, the garage needs order imposed upon it, and when my shoulder has sufficiently healed, I’ll see to it.

This shows how the cross-brace members attach at the gunwales – permanently fixed thereto with a brass screw. They are part of bow and stern assemblies.

Note the pronounced keel on this boat. My two Pouch folding kayaks have a sort of double flat keel Note also how the bottom of the frames accommodate the keel. The powdery residue may be from talcum powder used when the boat was last assembled.

Stem or bow of the Pionier 450 S – truly beautiful

Language

Seventy-Six is now about 18 months old, and seems to alternate between acquisition of social, linguistic, and motor skills.

Motor skills, for instance, he can jump up off the ground – getting a little air – at will and when asked. He can alternately walk or run. Sometimes he alters his gait to something that resembles skipping. He can build towers with blocks four or five high. He can pretty efficiently feed himself with fork or spoon. He’s learning to color and use a Magna-Doodle. He’s learned to climb up onto living room furniture without assistance (most of the time).

As to social skills, he answers questions, follows commands (when they are not too irksome), responds to conversational gambits, sometimes initiates conversation. He likes to play games that involve taking turns – uttering sounds, playing with items, playing peek-a-boo. He likes to play by himself. He likes to wrestle and play with the parents. He enjoys playing with other children. He expresses preferences for some types of food over others, and those preferences may change from day to day, meal to meal. Because he’s older, now, and more like a little boy than a baby, it’s harder for me to “let him cry it out.” Crying is, of course, one of the defining characteristics of babies. Sometimes they cry to blow off steam, and it seems like a normal, healthy activity for them. In an older child, however, I perceive crying arising from real distress. But I think toddlers still need to blow off steam by crying, still have no way of distinguishing between a serious problem and a minor annoyance – both may feel the same – without nice distinctions.

Linguistically, the little guy abbreviates words he’s not willing or able to completely enunciate by using the first letter of the word in place of the word. Tent is ‘T.’ Another child, named Ellie, is ‘E.’ Piano, Pizza, Peas, Printer are all ‘P.’ His sitter, Becky, is ‘B.’ Book, Bottle (now sippy cup), Bed, are ‘B.’ Other words he says clearly are Mop, Blue (Blue’s Clues), Keys. Other words he manages by uttering the first syllable, like ‘Tow’ for Tower.

Pionier 450 S Assembly Instructions

Pionier 450 S Instruction Sheets In German and English:

Pionier 450 S Instruction Sheets

Low-Res Image Dump

From my late, lamented 360.yahoo.com blog. The higher resolution images I’ve uploaded to a Facebook album. Happy Thursday, C.

Bad News

A friend posted the following quote as a quote, but without attribution, on an Internet forum yesterday:

He is not afraid of bad news.
– Psalm 112:7

Christian, you ought not to be afraid of the arrival of bad news; because if you are distressed by such, you are no different from other men. They do not have your God to run to; they have never proved His faithfulness as you have done, and it is no wonder if they are bowed down with alarm and cowed with fear. But you profess to be of another spirit; you have been born again to a living hope, and your heart lives in heaven and not on earthly things. If you are seen to be distracted as other men, what is the value of that grace that you profess to have received? Where is the dignity of that new nature that you claim to possess?

Again, if you should be filled with alarm like others, you would no doubt be led into the sins so common to them under trying circumstances. The ungodly, when they are overtaken by bad news, rebel against God; they murmur and maintain that God has dealt harshly with them. Will you fall into that same sin? Will you provoke the Lord as they do?

Moreover, unconverted men often run to wrong means in order to escape from difficulties, and you will be sure to do the same if your mind yields to the present pressure. Trust in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him. Your wisest course is to do what Moses did at the Red Sea: “Stand firm, and see the salvation of the LORD.”1 For if you give way to fear when you hear bad news, you will be unable to meet the trouble with that calm composure that prepares for duty and sustains in adversity.

How can you glorify God if you play the coward? Saints have often sung God’s high praises in the fires, but when you act as if there were no one to help, will your doubting and despondency magnify the Most High? Then take courage and, relying in sure confidence upon the faithfulness of your covenant God, “Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”2

1Exodus 14:13
2John 14:27

I truly don’t much care what other people think my life in Christ looks like from their perspective, so I don’t sweat that appearance stuff mentioned in the quote above.  But on the whole, it was what I needed to see when I tuned in to that discussion board.

Earlier in the day, I’d heard from my realtor that the house we sold did not stay sold.  That deal has fallen through.  We get to keep the buyer’s earnest money – a small sum that will offset to a degree the costs of continuing to own that house when we thought we were done with it.  To be truthful, I had a sense a couple of weeks ago that things were not going to work out, and had an attendant sense of peace that the matter would eventually result in a better outcome for us.

For one thing, I’m going to try to arrange today to have that one excellent, Mennonite-built shed removed to our current address.  The new property lacks a clean, dry storage place for my kayaking, camping, and sundry other gear.  The shed that came with the new house, although built on a perfectly good concrete slab, has after 30-odd years proven permeable siding-wise.  Another thing to fix or have fixed when time and disposable income permit.

And I’m going to get those excellent shelving units built in the 1970s for the house in which we then lived at 1904 Velez Dr., then San Pedro, but now billing itself as Rancho Palos Verdes, California.  The former buyers really liked and wanted the units, and we said, “Okay, for an additional sum, you can have them, too.”  They’ll either go in the den or in the garage, but in either place, we will find a use for them.

Finally, if you know anybody who is looking for an excellent, bargain-priced house here in loathsome Stepford that has seasonal bow-hunting across the street on thousands of wooded acres, three relatively large nearby lakes for flatwater paddling or fishing, about 900 wooded acres out back (sadly, they do not go with the house), mature cherry, apple, pear trees and grape vines, have that person drop me a message here or ring me at home.

Happy Wednesday,

Christov10

Mean Things About Bad People

Christov10 says mean things about bad people (even if they’re dead) on Facebook.

It’s true. Yes, the mean things I say are true, but this sentence refs that line, supra, in bold italics. It’s true. I’ve been “unfriended” for it a couple of times already. Sometimes I wonder whether I’ve gone too far, but then I reflectively ask myself the question, “So what?” Evidently one or two thought my remarks about the late Ted Kennedy were so over-the-line that, well that I had to be “unfriended” or chided for a lack of “class.”

My observations of the posts written by some of the most emotionally left-wing people I know indicate they define good form or that hard-for-Americans-to-define quality, “classy,” as someone willing to concede to a liberal without a fight. You know, like John McCain. Brilliant, clear-thinking people like Alan Keyes and Pat Buchanan are otherwise liberally defined. Sadly, they also seem nationally defined as “unelectable.”

Last night, some representative from, I think it was, South Carolina, stood up during Obama’s tedious speech to Congress and shouted out, “You Lie!” I know at least one independent, generally conservative thinker who stated that man was an ass for having done so. Another commenter described the representative as “ignorant.” Ass maybe, but ignorant, no. Reelectable? Probably. Classy? Who cares.

In simplest terms, it’s okay to say mean things about bad people when those mean things are true. Political speech enjoys constitutional protection, even if it is deemed offensive by the majority. This republic does not always benefit from a civil discourse.

Second Post-Op Checkup

On Thursday I drove up to the orthopedist’s clinic in a borrowed 1984 Volvo 240 wagon because I still had not been cleared to drive a stick-shift automobile. I left the house before 6:00 and arrived at my destination about 7:05, an hour early for my appointment. I got taken back to an exam room pretty quickly, talked to the nurse, then had a long wait for the doctor. No problem – I got to see him around 8:30, which is good for that busy clinic.

The report is good. Good range of motion, and I can return to work next Tuesday with only a couple of restrictions – must continue physical therapy, may not lift more than 20#, may only engage in sedentary work activities. And I get to drive my car again. Car needs washed in the worst way. The new house has beautiful, old trees all over the lot, but makes for a dirty car. Especially if it’s been parked under those trees for three and a half weeks.

Here are some photos from the surgery:

The surface of my acromium resembling the roof of a Tims Ford Lake cave I paddled into a couple of seasons ago

Acromium's surface all pink after the spurs' removal

In the joint - frayed cartilage

Here's what some of that cartilage looked like after tears and frayed bits had been neatly cut away - very workmanlike