Life is just...weird.

So this morning I was driving to work, and as I was driving through my apartment complex I saw this gigantic piece of metal mostly off to the side of the road. It looked sort of like a bathtub, or huge sink, but with wires. Naturally I stopped my car to get out and look. From every angle I'm looking this thing over, and it turns out that it's the firewall of a car. You know, that part of the car between your dashboard and the engine. There's no frame of the car, no outside part...just this...firewall. I look at the ground, and there's no sign of a wreck - besides, that'd be one hell of a wreck to knock one of those loose, and there'd be more stuff. Nope. There are some pieces of broken plastic on the ground and a white arc on the ground leading up to it.

So what happened is that this huge thing fell off...something...and someone dragged it to the side of the road.

What that hell?



But that's not all. I get back into my car and drive, and as I get to the exit from my complex, I happen to glance into my mirror and see that there's something odd about the mouth of the woman driving the car behind me. It's too big, and green, with a yellow circle hanging off it. Huh?

She's got a pacifier in her mouth.

No, seriously.

I think maybe it's one of those candy rings, you know, with a big sugar "gem", but...I don't think so, actually. The "ring" part is something like an inch and a half in diameter, and sort of hinged, I'm pretty sure. So...she's got a pacifier. And even if it is one of those candy rings, that's still just strange to see at 8 in the morning. In a grown woman's mouth. She's not a teenager, she's close to my age.

So...yeah. Life is just weird.

Snoo

Late Tuesday or early Wednesday, Snoo died. He was a ball python that I had for about 16 years. He made the trip out to Walla Walla with me, and back. He had to be rescued from my car one time out there when I found out the hard way that I couldn't take him on the plane with me, despite what the airline's website said.

He was a good snake, very even tempered, and never bit me.

He'll be missed.

Oh, crap

I'm 40.

It's about time

I must admit to being disappointed that Bush was never impeached. It is a failure of the American people to not have demanded it.

But at least he's out today.

Waiting

In 8 days we have a new President, and that's a very good thing. It's hard to imagine a worse one than what we have been saddled with for the last 8 years. Nearly and entire decade of economic potential growth, gone. An enormous loss of worldwide prestige. Massive violations of privacy and civil rights. Skyrocketing debt, and now walking a narrow tightrope between deflation and hyperinflation, either of which could happen in short order.

Mr. Obama, you have your work cut out for you.

Christmas Eve

So it's a bit after 10 pm of Xmas Eve 2008. My kids are quietly excited in their room, unable to get to sleep. I'm patiently waiting for them to do so, as the last presents have yet to be wrapped. The year is almost over, and I'm thinking about next year and what it might hold, and what this last one has been.

I'm coming to terms with the idea of being friends with my ex without us being active participants in each other's lives.

I'm thinking that dating is a good thing.

I am really enjoying the company I work for. The company as a whole, and my team in particular. I've never had the good fortune to work with a more professional and competent group of people.

I'm just as much in debt now as I was a year ago, and two years ago. It will take a drastic, ridiculously drastic, improvement in my income to alter that. I make better money now than I ever have in my life, and even if I spent no money on anything but rent and child support, it would take years upon years to dig myself out.

I somehow have a much worse social life now, in my home town, than I did in Walla Walla, surrounded by strangers.

I haven't exercised in about a year.

This time last year, I had begun talks with the recruiter for my current employer. I have no regrets about having worked for the fine folks in Walla Walla, nor do I have any about leaving them for here. I miss some of my friends from there, though.

All this change, and yet I feel stagnant. I've made little progress on things I'd like to accomplish.

So what does 2009 hold?

So this is my life

I work. I take care of my kids. I do my laundry. I go to the grocery store. I read. I spend time online. I tutor a student in precalc and physics.

That's it.

I lead an utterly uninteresting life.

Marking Time

I guess it's been two years now, according to what I wrote last year. There's really not much to say about it. My income is much better than it was, but my debt is still there. I've dated a small number of women. My kids are growing up. I drove across the country solo twice. I've gotten some good stories out of this time.

So why does it feel sometimes like nothing's changed?

Faith based economics

I'm pretty sure the economy is a religion. When you have values of things based on what people believe they are worth, and when their fear of the future can radically alter the economic terrain...that's just not science. That's faith. That's religion.

The people throwing money at this mess have no idea what they are doing. None at all. If they knew how to fix it, they should have done so a long time ago.


The stock market didn't begin to recover from the 1929 crash until 1932. That's when it bottomed out. Think about that for a little bit. Quick fixes? At this point, I'd suggest just doing what it takes to keep your job, although companies that start right now will probably do frighteningly well if they can make sales and avoid needing external funding.

Last Sunday

I meant to write about this sooner, but forgot. Last Sunday, the 7th, I was setting up the TV for the kids. First day of football, you know, and there was a brief delay between turning on the TV and the DVD player. Next thing you know, Zoe is saying something really fast, and it takes me a second to decipher it:

"Football season!"
"Wabbit season!"
"Football season!"
"Wabbit season!"
"Football season!"
"Wabbit season!"
"Baseball season!"

Good lord, she's funny.

So I've been thinking

I've been thinking a lot lately about the upcoming election, and about some people that I consider to be my friends, and about how people live their lives, and I'm undergoing some cognitive dissonance.

Let me preface some of this by just coming out and saying, up front, that I'm not a Christian.

What I mean by that is that I don't believe that Christ came back from the dead, and I don't believe that he worked miracles. I am completely uncertain about the existence of an afterlife, and my concept of "God" is wholly unlike what pretty much all the Christians I ever talked to seem to believe. I also really don't care for organized religion as a whole.

What I do get is the message on how to live your life, though. Peace, hope, love, charity. These are things common to pretty much all major religions. What's interesting about Christianity is the concept that the message and the messenger are one and the same, but that's tangential to where I'm going with this.

See, the cognitive dissonance I'm running into here are my friends who are Christian Republicans. I live in Indiana, a really conservative state. Despite that, I see a lot more Obama bumper stickers than I do McCain. A lot of the time when I see a McCain sticker, I also see a Christ-fish thingy as well. These people are devout, deep Christians.

But what does that mean to them?

One of the things that people like about the Republican party is that it offers moral clarity. Things are simple - right or wrong, black or white. They don't like the apparent wishy washy nature of the Democrats. I can see how that would have some appeal.

Christ, too, had such moral clarity. Incisive. Things were very clearly right or wrong for this man.

But Christ was the ultimate liberal.

By today's standards, he'd be considered a wacko hippie freak commie. Help the weak, feed the poor, shelter the homeless. End war. Love thy neighbor.

Christ's intolerance was toward hypocrites. To people who placed monetary wealth over their souls and the souls of others. He accepted the outcasts, the people that you and I would walk past without a second thought as they sit on the sidewalk without hope.

I am reminded of a great post over at Waiter Rant that talks about God's economics, explaining the parable of Legion. Go read it, it's worth thinking about.

Both parties consist of people who believe they have America's best interests at heart. But one of them seems far more willing to kill to protect those interests, and those same people are more likely to turn their backs on our own people who need the most help. And those are the ones more likely to strongly identify themselves as Christian.

So that's my cognitive dissonance in a nutshell.

To the people who read this who consider themselves Christians, I ask you: Are you a Christian only one day a week?

Sad day for local gaming

My favorite local game shop, The Boardroom, closes its doors yesterday, forever.

I'm going to miss the place, and Jerry, and his daughter Alaine.

Sucks.

Working

So I'm sitting here at work, wondering how to test some of this code, and my coworker says to me, "You've got a Blogger account? Make a post!"

So here it is.

4e

So I got a copy of Fourth Edition D&D in the mail from Amazon yesterday. (Sorry, Jerry, I know it's stuff like that that's making you close up shop. I'll come buy some stuff soon.) It's...different. I can't tell yet if I'm going to like playing it or not. It's going to be ridiculously easy for someone, anyone, to convert that to a computer game. A character generator, monster generator, hell even a class generator - all those would be so simple to code up it's absurd.

I don't think WotC has put the license up (GSL) for this just yet, but I strongly suspect it will ban software implementations of the game.

Ow, poor Ben

Seems that Ben fell down while jumping rope yesterday and took a divot out of his chin. Chris tells me that she doesn't see how it can't leave a scar, as it's chewed up pretty badly. She's making sure it doesn't get infected and all of that, and I'm sure he'll be fine.

Still, I feel bad for the guy. I know stuff like this is part of being a kid, but I don't like him being hurt.

I'm ok

Seriously. Several people have emailed me to make sure I'm fine after the last couple postings about being ill. So...I'm ok.

Sleepy, but not sick.

(Waiting for email expressing concern that I'm not getting enough sleep...)

Better, sort of

Well, I'm not violently ill like I was, but I'm certainly not completely better. There's this sick spot in my stomach that makes me hungry/not-hungry. Schroedinger's Appetite.

I was up too late last night.

I feel sick

I stayed home from work yesterday. I pretty much never do that, but when you're violently expelling fluids from your body, it's pretty much a given that you don't go to work.

At least I'm not doing that today, but I do still have a terrible headache. Not much fun. Also feeling rather weak. I thought about not coming in today, either, but here I am.

Can Aaron hear me?

That's right, I'm referring to the other Aaron Stanton, the more famous one.

I've gone and created a Facebook group for our namesakes. Let's see if he joins.

Love

I was just thinking about my kids, and how I look forward to seeing them fall in love, and then it hit me - my own father never got to see that. He left the country before I ever fell in love. I never got to talk to him about it.

It makes me sad.