She Makes Me Look Good

T convinced me tonight that my blog needed a makeover. With that in mind, I invite you to have a look at the spiffy new background and the same old post from 2008. In fact even the 2008 post is primarily about an even older post and some rambling thoughts about my lack of posting ... some things never change.

Sometimes I'm a lot like this blog in that my "content" doesn't seem to change all that much. It's not that nothing has happened in my life over the last 2 years ... in fact there have been a lot of good stories and sad stories - but I seem to be the same. Maybe this happens to everyone as they slide head-long into 40, but I'm starting to see my experiences relative to geography and people rather than time and events. The danger in this, I expect is that one starts to see auniverse spinning around you rather than yourself on a journey through a universe.

This post is starting to sound like an existential Monty Python song ... so I should start to wind down before the cardboard animation starts up with something really confusing.

I mentioned earlier that my new blog-face is all T's doing. It's probably best to stay on track with that and point out that she makes me look good quite often and really is an unbelievably fantastic wife. That is after all why I married her and that, like my rather static life - never changes.

I've quasi-promised to start blogging again, so be forewarned. I'm not sure how any of this will get me a free coins in those Facebook games that seem to steal all my online time - but you are welcome to read and or comment here without any sort of real or imaginary reward. That's how it should be after all ...

Follower

It has been a while since my last post and I realized that I didn't want the first thing people read to be my (semi-cynical / semi-humorous) bit on the KJV. As with most of my posts, I often feel less cynical / humorous once I've written them down ....

Looking back at it now, it seems a lot more about how some believers might be less than effective when using the language of the 1600's to share The Gospel ... rather than a specific slam on (what was pointed out to me recently as) "God's Word for many people for many years".

.......

As for the title of this post .... Just about anyone that has read this blog in the past knows that most of my updates are now on facebook (and therefore mercifully shorter). But I'll be back now and again ... usually when I'm feeling particularly cynical / humorous ... to put up a post now and then. I suspect that many of you readers are doing the same - and to make it easier on me to stay up to date, I'm now using the "Follow" feature to alert me when anyone has a new post. I'm guessing that all of you will get notices of this ... and end up here.

All that is to say ..... Nothing new, just covering my bases. Feel free to browse the archives though. I especially recommend 2005-2006 (the peak of my blogging, such as it was) for a glimpse back. And if you would like to nominate an old post as a Blogger Flashback (on my facebook) just let me know here in the comments.

- Dash

Face It

As some of you know, I'm slowly venturing into the world of social networking sites.

It started unintentionally - Googling a former co-worker to get ideas on a potential training vendor ..... and then 25 minutes later, I had 4 people in my LinkedIn.com profile. An hour later, I'd done a professional reference for one of them and found that another was expecting their 3rd child this fall. After a few more folks suggested Facebook.com, I set up a profile there today.

In one odd confused series of links, Dust ended up as a "secondary" contact via someone else that I haven't spoken to in person for 2 years (that is, if he chooses to accept me). I'm not sure if you can tell how "connected" you are to someone when visiting their profile ... but the thought occurred to me that this might be seen as a slight against someone like being a triple-digit speed dial on a cell phone.

BlackBoard had a link saying that she was a fan of Sarah Groves ... and after clicking my own agreement to this, I realized that looking at the demographics - I might be seen as creepy old guy in a the list of teenage high school girls.

Since I did all this at work (while on conference calls), I didn't have a pic to load. This will turn into a great deal of agonizing over just the right image to use ... and that's when it hit me: All the anonymity of the web is slipping away. I have to be myself again as I connect with people that - If I'm honest - thought I was a dork when they met me. Guess I'll just have to face it.

More to Come (# 91)

Sorry I've been so short on posts (9 more to go until 100). I'm sure I'll have more to say after I get into my newest audio book - 'The Intuitionist'. It's on hold for me at the library and will be the first book I've ever read soley based on a book critics review

It looks like T has been keeping everyone up to date on the household happenings, so I'll only report that I now have a bluetooth headset (thanks t!). While this is not nessesarily new technology, I feel very cool. N thinks I look like that girl from Star Trek - which I can only presume is Seven of Nine. Not exactly the look I was going for ... but it is most definately cool.

Speaking of cool .... (stop reading now forrest) ...... I got 2 DC talk collections from the CD club we joined a year ago. It was time to use our free CDs and .. well there you have it. I just wished one of them would have had 'Heavenbound' - I've started to forget some of the words.

.... down with the dc talk - d .. d .. down with the dc talk - are you down with the dc talk?

Oasis in Brazil

After two days in Indiana I found that I was dearly missing my internet connection. T's mom has her computer in the shop (the victim of a recent lightning strike), so I was without even Clay County Rural Telephone Cooperative's crummy dial-up. I had no email, no blogs, and no access to online Royal Ranger information on the achievement badges C-man and I are working on.

After a surprisingly good meal at the local Hardee's in Brazil, IN (the closest real town) I noticed a sign in a run down section of down town that seems to be in the midst of remodeling: Brazil Coffee House. I didn't have much faith that it would work since the good folks making my "thickburger" looked at me funny when I asked them and recommended the local RadioShack since "they have computers and stuff"/

I was shocked to find flavored coffee in this 4 stoplight town - much less a cozy little java joint. After parking behind the building and hiking around to the front, I stuck my head in and asked if they were a hot spot. They said yes!!! After pronouncing a blessing upon the establishment and all that may enter, I rushed back to the van to grab my bag.

Now I'm enjoying a decaf macadamian chocolate blend and typing my first log in 2 weeks. I may not be able to see comments quite as quickly .. but I imagine I'll have to share my discovery with T. So I'll be back to soak in the aroma ... and the signal.

Tux 29

The rented tux was number twenty-nine
It had been cleaned and pressed with care
This would be the best prom ever
All the tuxes would be there

Two prom tickets and a padded wallet
They now filled the left coat pocket
Every nickel every cent
Months of savings will finally be spent

The tux slid into the bucket seats
Of a waxed and polished car
Popped in some music
Romance from a rock star

The car arrived at her house
Just in time to see
The pretty blue formal - his date
With tux twenty-three

The car sped off into the night
In an vain attempt to flee
On and off the road
Nearly hitting a tree

The engine finally stopped
On a high and windy hill
When something broke deep inside
Tux twenty-nine's will

Bitterly fighting the wind
With a lapel salty with tears
Tux twenty-nine stood shivering
Facing all its fears

Cold steel was pulled from a pocket
And held to the sky in regret
Then something plunged cold and deep
Into the tux's vest

The tux shook and fell silent
As the rain began to fall
A spirit not that of the tux
Wasted into the squall

No longer so pressed, so clean, so fine
There is a large red stain on tux twenty-nine

*******************************************

Saying that I was in a bad place when I wrote this, would be an overstatement. It had a lot more to do with listening to songs like Close My Eyes Forever and trying to be dark and angst-y than any actual emotional issues I was facing. Granted, I was the guy whose mom died in High School; so in some sick way, I felt this poem (and others that I will not subject you to) was somehow an expected part of the role I was playing.

Looking back, I find that my tolerance for this type of poetry has dropped dramatically ... even if the subject matter was better and it had little things like punctuation. I expect that I'm not the only one out there that found that I could churn out iambic pentameter at a prolific rate. The fact that much of the music lyrics I was listening too were in the same A-B-C-B structure probably lent to the style as well. Although I was horribly mistaken, I believed that any girl would fall at my feet if I could write depressing songs.... Too bad I only played drums.

This bit of drivel was reworked into a 2-part piece called "Red: A Profane and Holy Sonnet" that contrasted the last 4 stanzas with a parallel of the same poem recounting the crucifixion from the perspective of the roman that held the spear of destiny...

No longer so hard, so clean, so fine
There are large red stains on these hands of mine

"Red" became part of an anthology of sorts when I decided to move beyond faux suicide epics and deal with real emotions. I read through some drafts of "Green" and "Black" the other night while I was looking for Tux Twenty-Nine. They tried to express how I reflected my mood in the sights of my real and imagined surroundings; so they were much more abstract ... not one girl swooned over those. "Purple" on the other hand, changed my life - more on that next time.

Looking Back - The Vow Week 2

Well, I managed to blog every day for a week; and I must say it's been nice to feel like I've actually accomplished something. Granted, this was not much to do - but I've been feeling like I don't get much done lately. Looking over my blogs for the week (especially yesterday) has made me realize that I am being a little negative.

This is often a big part of my so-called "personality", so I can justifiably be a little self-loathing now and then. On the other hand, it doesn't make for good blog reading and probably isn't the best foot forward to put out there. With that in mind, I'm going to try for another 7 days of blogging. This time I'm going to try and be happy and (somewhat) funny. So keep reading and tell those people you call friends. Dash is going to relive happy childhood moments.

For those of you that like rules and guidelines, I'll once again stipulate that "daily" blogs can be posted after midnight and still count. Also, I'll define childhood as pre-17 (when I went to college). Just like last week, if you'd like to suggest a topic, please comment to this post.

... now where did I put that yearbook? .....

My Profile Pic

While Golden still has the best profile pic, I must admit that I'm rather happy with mine. I tried out several tonight .. Including some Marvin the Martian, drummers, and a whole lot of dashboards. There was even a cool new Mac logo that shows a speedometer looking this with cool symbols all around like "@" The copy I found of it was too big for the blog ...

So in the end I settled on this one. It took me a while to figure out what was wrong with all the other dashboards that I was seeing; then I figured it out - they all had steering wheels. For some reason this just didn't seem right.

Any-who, I'll probably change it soon. I'm just happy that I remembered to do it and figured out how.

have google, will search.

- dash.

Doc's Quiz

Thanks to all of you that have submitted questions for this week's bloggin marathon ..... ok, actually it's more of a mini-marathon. Today - since I have adequate battery life - I'll be answering one comment in greater detail than the others. It seems fair that I would do this for Doc since I am so behind in commenting to his blog.

Q1: What/Who's your favorite cartoon character?

Answer: For a long time the answer to this questions was always Marvin the Martian. That little green guy was cool in the same way that Booger was cool in Revenge of the Nerds. I used to have a marvin ball cap, a marvin watch, marvin stickers on my trapper keeper .. I'm pretty sure I even had a marvin tie when T and I started dating.

Today though, I find myself identifying with a whole new kind of Cartoon character. Hank Hill and his buddies from Arlen TX is by far my my favorite cartoon - surpassing even the Simpsons (just breathe BB ... it's ok). Last night, T and I watched the episode where Hank and Peggy are trying to get pregnant; I've never seen her laugh so much at a cartoon ever. By the way, my appreciation for the Hills has nothing to do with how narrow (or wide) my urethra might be.

... that last bit of info was for doc.


Q2: What country outside of USA would you most want to visit, and why? (i.e. Netherlands, legal pot)

Answer: As un-exotic as it sounds, I'd really like to spend some time in the less populated parts of the British Isles. This probably has more to do with a chance to listen to celtic music in the right setting and reading about barrows, amons, and tols when I can actually see them from where I'm sitting.


Q3: When you get old, would you rather have a healthy mind and decrepit falling apart body (like Parkinson's) or a healthy body and demented mind (like Alzheimer's)?

Answer: I'd like to keep it all upstairs even if means the plumbing and wiring don't work that well.


Q4: What's your favorite fast food?

Answer: If I have to go with a national chain with drive-throughs at every other highway exit, I'll go with McDonalds. I've ordered 2 double cheeseburgers (with no pickle) and a small coke nearly every visit for 10 years. I'm proud to say that both of me are in that count of "millions and millions served"

If I can pick anything that is inherantly unhealthy and is served on paper, I'll pick "Casper's" in Springfield, MO. I was shocked to learn that they are still in business back in the old orange quansit hut down by the river. They had previously moved to a twice remodeled KFC on the hip south side of town but closed quickly - I thought for good - in their new unsatisfyingly clean diggs. Casper's is famous for their Chilli and Burgers .. or Chilli-Burgers if you're in a hurry. My dad said that they open just after labor day each year and serve lunch until the warmth of memorial day sends them into semi-retirement for the summer. He has a Casper's sweatshirt - I'm jealous.


Q5: And last but not least - Extreme Hot vs. Extreme Cold?

A: I'm a cold lover. But not to a nutso extent like those polar bear swimmers off the southern coast of Chile. Nor would I want to have been that guy that just set the world record for the longest polar swim (half an hour). This has nothing to do with me - but when you listen to NPR, it shows up in everything.

Thanks for the great questions Doc. Only 4 more blogs to go .... will he make it?????

stay tuned.

Low Battery Warning

My laptop just told me that I have 13 minutes before I run out of juice so here are some of my (admittedly brief) answers to your questions.

re: Elephants and Donkeys ..... One thinks that the guys running all the businesses will get him elected if he keeps them business. One thinks that anyone out of business will be so greatful for help getting back to work that they will get their vote.

re: Blogging Style .... I'll have to come back to that.

re: Best / Worst of 80's CCM .... White Heart / Stryper

re: Odds Are .... Any question that makes Dust turn red and Golden giggle.

..... 10 minutes left ... I've been thinking too much .....

re: Fuschia ....I called something hot pink and someone else called it Fuschia.. it sounded so stupid, I never forgot. Pink=salmon ha!

re: Springfield ... New Years was cool .. except for being away from T. My dad , the kids and I parked on an upper level of the new municipal parking garage and watched the concert / fireworks in the park below. I got to see Sarah Groves do 3 songs just before they turned out the electric snowflakes (no ball drop in the ozarks apparently).

re: Manly Movie .... The (bad) remake of the Posieden Adventure on Scifi ... oh and Narnia.

re: My blog is (saddly) all about trying to look somewhat cool while commenting on the mundane things that I think should be important.

.... oh by the way, my blog style is ..... [battery failure] + [restart]

Seven Days: a.k.a The Vow

They say that it takes seven days of repetitive behavior to form a habit. Since it is the season for resolutions - and I've chosen not to make any other type of goal for the new year - I hereby vow to blog every day for the next seven days.

I'm not going to be too much of a stickler on the rules. For example, a blog at 2am could be counted for either the previous day or the next (but not both). I won't be trying to get away with any of those cheesy 2 line posts ... or passing off movie quotes off as my own. On the other hand I won't be churning out War and Peace either.

As T will tell you, I've been in a bit of a funk lately when it comes to the dashboard; maybe this will make a difference. I realized today that I'm only up to blog 66 and have a bit of catching up to do. When I started thinking about this post on the way home from the store, I thought that I was close enough to vow daily blogs up to the 100th post. Saddly, a week will have to do.

If you'd like to contribute to the effort, feel free to suggest topics. In the unlikely event that I receive more suggestions than needed to complete the vow, I'll keep track of the requests for future posts.

Special Guest Blogger

Dash has asked me to be a guest writer on his blog. His reasoning - he's not writing many blogs and he wants more posts. He said, I can write a blog easily, I guess this is true. If I am given a topic, I can usually find something to blog about from that topic. This is a perfect example. So, as his dutiful wife I agreed to this on the condition that he pick the topic I write about. After all, it is HIS blog. So, here's the topic dash chose....

Ask your questions here!

He wants you to ask me questions about dash! I am not sure this is wise, since I'll be giving my opinions/thoughts but it's what he wanted. I think he's trying to get some extra comments too! Anyway, now's your chance...ask away!

Game Day

Very rarely - about once every 2 years, I get the opportunity to attend a Chiefs game at Arrowhead stadium. My seat was on the field level - row 32 (at about the 20 yard line). I was under the overhang of the club deck above, Relatively near the aisle, and NOT between two similarly sized fans.

The Game was fun to watch. I really enjoy getting to hear all the fan cheering, booing, and laughing. We boohooed at the ref's for missing a blatant off-sides from the Jet's defensive line. We cheered at each and every Kansas City ... "FIRST DOWN" while using the appropriate hand signals and chanting. We laughed when an ill-communicated play resulted in a pass that bounced off the helmet of the unsuspecting receiver.

The odd part about it is I'm not really a Football Fan. Let me clarify ... I enjoy watching a game from time to time (usually about 2 or 3 a season) and I cheer like the best of them when I'm at a game ... On the other hand - I don't know who most of the players are. I don't know who is ranked better than who. I'm not in any fantasy football leagues and until the other night, I only owned 1 football related item of clothing. If I have to pick between watching a Football Game or an afternoon Romantic comedy - I'll pick the movie every time.

So, why do I still go to the game when I get a chance? I think it's the shared excitement and yelling experience. This may be a bad thing since it would make me one of the Romans that thought Lion bating was a good idea.

The Journey

If you are like me, it's sometimes difficult to know how to navigate to all the blogs without backtracking. I usually end up clicking back to Dashboard Drummer between each blog and selecting the next link in my list. This seemed very inefficient today, so I took a little time to outline a link order you can use to visit each blog in one swoop. It goes a lil' somethin' like 'dis'......

Take a little ride and tap out a little ditty to whatever kind of music turns you into a DASHBOARD DRUMMER. Then stop and take a walk on the DIRT ROAD - be sure to watch where you step around the cows as you make your way your way to the little one room school house with the neat BLACK-BOARD.

Remember not to scratch your fingernails down the chalky handwriting as you look out the window at the GOLDEN SUNRISE that is setting across the waves of grain that are swaying along the dusty road that turns and runs OFF THE BRIDGE that collapsed years ago.

This is the sort of spot that a ROAMING WRITER would look for their whole life and then not have a thing to write with because some guy named DAR-something borrowed your last pen to write WHAT'S UP DOC on the bathroom wall in the last gas station.

Go back down the road until you come to the edges of A FORREST. Find a big stump to sit on while you decide how this journey should end. If springtime is in bloom and the VERNAL EQUINOX has blessed the world with a message, happiness may be found there. On the other hand, reading the rare German safety warning on your air rifle - under the heading ACHTUNG BB - might prove interesting. Whichever way you choose to go, it's a dead end.

Mundane Facts for Friday

1 out of every seven pencils in my pen/pencil cup has a green eraser. There are 3 black pens for every 1 blue. My red highlighter is completely useless.

Mundane Fact For Thursday

I have 132 paper clips in my desk drawer. 32 are "jumbo" - I've never used any of the regular size that were in the drawer when moved in 2 years ago.

Get Out Of Debt!!!

Dust mentioned the late night commercials for debt companies in his post today. Since this is somewhat related to my area of "expertise", I feel compelled to further caution you and your friends/relatives about the perils involved in getting out of debt.

With so many consumers looking for help, it is inevitable that some less than stellar organizations have risen up to take advantage of the situation. I'll describe each type of company and add some comments from my experience here at the bank. We'll start with the worst and work our way up the food chain.

Jimmy and Guido's International Import/Export:In case you wondered, borrowing from your local mafia loan shark is still a bad idea.

Cash-This-Check-R-Us:These are the guys responsible for all the "checks" that you get in the mail. A company like this differs from Jimmy and Guido's in that they have a P.O.. box and a fed tax id. No matter how many people are calling you to collect money - it's not worth "consolidating" with daily compounded interest at 27% Strangely enough, some actually send checks that can be cashed. You might want to shred offers like these so the losers searching your garbage for ID theft don't cash them for you.

Title Loan Companies:If you sign your car over to these folks, you might as well get a vanity license plate: KSITGBY. Most have nasty loop holes like requiring you to pay back large portions of the loan before they disperse the money to your creditors. This means you have to pay them the money you don't have to begin with so that they will pay the other people you stopped paying so that you could pay them .... and oh by the way - they own your car now.

At this point in the food chain, we are approaching a level of somewhat respectable business. By this, I mean that the corporate address changes less than once per quarter and rarely moves across state lines.

Debt Management Companies (DMC):
This is probably what Dust saw advertised on late night TV. A DMC works with your creditors to settle the debt on your behalf. They offer one low monthly payment and tell you to stop paying the creditors ... and stop taking the collections calls. The problem here is that most creditors don't settle until the account is seriously past due (i.e. 4-6 months); The DMCs know this, so they sit on your money until the bill writes off as bad debt. By this point your credit is seriously ruined and you haven't got much to show for it. Your debt is now larger because all the finance charges and late fees stacked up the whole time you were paying them. Some customers even throw away arrangement offers from the creditors - because they are, "already working with so-and-so".

A company that advertise that they settle for "pennies on the dollar" can do just that with a settlement that requires you to pay 85-90 pennies of every dollar. You probably won't have paid them enough by then - especially if they already pulled out their "administrative costs". By the way, a trained monkey can get you a 15% settlement on a credit card bill once it's been written off as a loss.

Consumer Credit Groups (CCG):
These are the good guys - the most famous, Consumer Credit Counseling Services, is primarily funded by the big credit card companies. Most creditors have dedicated departments that work with CCGs and previously negotiated payment terms for their customers. For example, Citi customers get no fees, not interest and a payment roughly equal to their regular monthly due. Most will have the account paid off in under 5 years.

While working with a CCG, you essentially have no credit; but nobody calls you, your balances go down and you have light at the end of the tunnel - just don't try to pick up a something new at Best Buy on store credit. Oh and by the way, if your creditors start calling you again, you might want to see what they have to say. They might just be trying to let you know that something has messed up your auto-withdrawal - better to get it fixed now.

Then again, you might want to hire the trained monkey.

What You've All Been Waiting For .....

Here are this month's ranking based on number of posts. The number in parentheses indicates the average number of comments recieved per post; this is the tie-breaker. As I mentioned last month, this is not meant as an evaluative assesment of your blogging - or lack thereof. it is simply a way if identifying which of my links at left are more likely to have a fresh post.

DIRT......18...(5.4)
DUST.....17...(7.3)
FORR.....16...(7.6)
GOLD.....12...(7.8)
ROAM......8...(6.8)
DARK.......8..(6.5)
BB...........6..(6.5)
JADE........6..(3.2)
DOC........5...(5.4)
VERN.......2...(7.5)

A New World Order

Today is a polo day. I'm not sure if that has anything to do with this post, but I thought I would point it out. Some of my visitors have asked about the order in which I had listed my links to other blog sites.

Ok - it was actually just Dirt, but she had good reason to ask since her link was in "last" place. To clarify: the previous "link order" was based on the posting frequency of the guys. The girls were then listed with their significant other. This was done to increase the effectiveness of my links - the idea being that the higher up the list you clicked the more likely you were to get a "fresh" post.

For example:

* DUST posted the most, so he and GOLD were at the top of the list
* FUND posted the least, so my alter ego and Dirt were dropped to the bottom.

To increase the equity of link ranking, I have removed the couples connection; ranking the list in tru post order. For those of you that were wondering, I've posted June's data below:
June 2005 Blogging Data

BLOGGER

POSTS

CMNTS

C/P

DUST
16
123
7.69
DIRT
13
78
6.00
AFOR
12
55
4.58
GOLD
11
60
5.45
BLAC
10
29
2.90
DASH
9
64
7.11
DARW
7
37
5.29
ROAM
5
25
5.00
ACHT
2
12
6.00
VERN
2
15
15.00
FUND
1
15
12.00

Writing Assignments

The first few years that I was in college, I used a word processing program called "First Choice" for the few papers that I managed to turn in. If I remember correctly, it booted from DOS an was preferred over "Word Perfect" because it was more intuitive and required less 3 key-stroke commands. The only computers that I had access to were in the lab, although I did have an Amiga that I used to play Golden Axe.

My point in bringing this up is that writing a paper - even creative writing - was a chore. This was even more the case in High School when everything was written painfully by hand. I wonder if today's blog happy students, see creative writing as the horrible assignment that it used to be. I for one, churn out an annoying amount of printed material for work every week and that's before any of my attempts at poetry off the bridge or any other blogging.

Will it be economically feasible, if not impractical to keep the college computer labs open? I wonder how my G.P.A. might have been effected had my inspiration for a paper had included the view from under my favorite tree - rather than the asbestos tiles that lined the upper floor of the Library and the bring blue and white blur of machine without a mouse.