More Pictures

Just posted a few more pictures to my Flickr site. There should be more photos in the near future. I just need to caption them.

Oh, and we're going to the Great Wall tomorrow.

Miscellanea

• Before heading out to one of the tourist sites for the day, my wife and I stopped into the local Subway to get some sandwiches for the road. The staff there had perfectly functional English (as far as ordering sandwiches goes) which was both surprising and wonderful.
  We finished paying for our sandwiches and thanked the gal in Chinese, using one of the few phrases we can manage at this point.
  
  Oddly, she answered back "gracias".

• There's a somewhat impromptu market across the street from where we are staying and while strolling through there Katie found some serving dinnerware that were exactly in the same style as our current dishes. Since spying these, she has been making plans to figure out how to get them back home in one piece since similar goods in the US are much more expensive.
  
  Just how similar are these items compared to what we can buy at Target back home? Well, not only do they look identical but they have the text "Target" and their logo inked onto the bottom of each item. I don't know if these are stolen, factory rejects, or knock-offs and I don't know if it really matters.

• There are a wide variety of markets here and depending on the expected clientel, the approach in bargaining with a merchant varies. A few days ago we were at a tourist hot-spot: the Pearl Market (the market sells more than pearls but is famous for said goods). The merchants there are used to dealing with foreigners who have cash to burn and mark-up their items accordingly. Katie was interested in some scrolls and we were able to negotiate the price down from 350 yuan to 250 yuan. Along the way from the opening price to the final price we were given counter offers:
  
  310- "This is 'friend' price."
  
  280- "This what locals pay."
  
  260- "This is good deal."
  
  255- "250 is unlucky Chinese number." (This was my favorite)
  
  After scowling and laughing my way through the string of counter-offers our original offer was accepted and I felt pretty good about holding steady. I knew we didn't do a fantastic job of negotiating but we were new at this. I didn't realize how horridly we had been ripped-off until our host who was there with us showed us some silk clothing she had purchased while waiting for us.
  
  Original price: 380 yuan
  
  Final price: 50 yuan (and she thinks she could have gone lower)

• One more thing on the pearl market: the merchants are VERY aggressive. As soon as the white-skinned people show up they spring out of their stalls and loudly begin their sales pitch. Irritatingly, most begin with, "Hello, friend...". I felt like a carcass being picked over with vulture-merchants all simlutaneously moving in for the kill. The worst were those the physically pulled on me or that followed us long past we had left the area of their stalls. There were several that ignored us and were busy reading newspapers, magazines, and books. I felt like I should buy something, anything, from them to reward their non-aggressiveness and teach all the others a lesson.
  
  Alternatively, I've been trying to think of a way that I could be equally annoying to the merchants and make it very clear to them that I am not interested in anything they are selling and highly disapprove of their behavior. I've decided that I need to carry a small squirt-gun and every time one of them jumps out in front of me and opens her mouth to say, "Hello, fri....", right then I'll squirt her in the face. True, this does sort of escalate matters and will probably result in a yelling match in several different languages but it would be funny for at least a few moments.
  
  Overall, I don't think the merchants would be very happy with me and would feel I had done something rude. At least, then, there would be equality between us and we could both go home unhappy.

Disposable Lifestyle

As I've written before, the car is not the primary means of transportation for most people living in Beijing. Public transportation and bicycles/scooters by far outstrip the number of cars on the road. In light of this, I find it very odd that there are NO trashy cars on the road. All of them look very nice and appear to be well maintained. This is very odd in light of the fact that almost all of the bicycles are in horrid disrepair.

Looking over a typical bike rack, about 15% appear to be newer bikes in good shape. The rest are rusting hulks that I'm surprised work at all. These bikes could all use a new chain, new gears and a thorough cleaning and lubing. Walking the streets here, though, I've seen only one bicycle repair shop. For whatever reason, cars get maintained and bicycles don't . I don't know if bicycle repairs are just beyond the means of most bike owners (which would not be the case for car owners) or if it is cheaper to just buy a new bike when the old one completely fails. You would think that if your bike was your main means of transportation that you would maintain it.

This serves to highlight an aspect of Chinese culture that seems widespread: the lack of planning/maintenance. More so than the US, a lot of life here seems to be one-use and disposable. I've always thought of China as a resource-strapped country but I was clearly wrong about this. The Chinese here may keep items in disrepair longer but, for the most part, they don't seem to take this one step further and do things like preventative maintenance (like lubing their bikes).

Another great example: there are two elevators in the apartment building in which we are staying. The two of them are never both working and this seems to be by design. In the few days we've been here, we've ridden on both; one day the left-hand one will be working, the next day its the right-hand one. I have no idea why this is; Katie guessed that maybe the electrical system isn't up to the task of running both simultaneously. Whatever the reason, it is clear that mechanically both elevators work fine, just not at the same time.

Why is this? Why, in one of the largest cities in the world, does there appear to be a profound lack of planning by its citizens. I am at a loss for a good answer.

Chinese Playgroups

One of the problems with the one-child policy in China is the ease at which that one child can become the center of the family's existence. With no siblings to compete for attention and resources, it is easy to see how a child could grow up not understanding that the world does not revolve around him or her. I was impressed to learn that many parents have developed at least one specific way to combat this: playgroups.

Every afternoon after school classes get out, a group of children gather in the apartment complex courtyard and bring a toy out to play. The goal is to provide socialization where each child is not the center of the interaction. In effect, the children all grow into a much larger family for a few hours and must learn together about things like sharing, playing nice with others, and learning how to relate in a positive way to their peers.

I think this is a great idea and am VERY impressed with whoever came up with it. I hope it will be able to serve its purpose well and that this generation of children will have some balance to their lives.

Christmas in Beijing

As you might expect in a country that doesn't have the Western cultural heritage, Christmas is a bit different than it is in the States. Oddly, Christmas isn't absent from the culture entirely, though our friends here say that this addition has occurred in the past several years or so. In all the shopping centers we've visited the past few days, Christmas carols (in English) have been playing and many of the stores have the visage of Santa Claus festooned about with the words "Merry Christmas" written beneath his head.

All of this is facade, though. In my interaction with a few Chinese people here nobody knows why Christmas is celebrated or even what day the holiday is on. Those Christmas carols playing in the store, even if the shoppers do know English, any kind of comprehension is completely lost on them. (This was evidenced by a game of Christmas carol pictionary we played with some Chinese students where Frosty was portrayed as a VERY fat man and Rudolph was also also man but with a red nose). There is no "reason for the season" here except a completely commercial exercise that most don't formally celebrate. It is like the top, superficial layer of holiday has been scrapped off and spread over the culture here.

Here, Santa Claus is the main image of Christmas and very few have any reason to believe that there is something wrong with this.

Photos!

I've (finally) updated my Flickr stream with a handfull for photos from our stay here.

(One of our friends here said that she checked my photos often. This made me feel bad because my stream has been dormant for quite some time, getting close to a year. To make it up to her, my plan is to retroactively stream in some photos I've taken over this previous year. Keep your eyes peeled for that in the months to come.)

Rules of the Road

As in many countries throughout the world, traffic in Beijing is something very different than what I am used to in the USA. Calling it chaotic, dangerous, or lawless, though at least true on the surface, is missing the point. As I've been walking around the neighborhood and dealing with street crossings myself I've been trying to determine the governing principles for how traffic works here. I haven't come up with anything definitive but here's what I have seen.

Despite some of the other moving "violations", cars and buses follow the traffic lights pretty well, actually. In fact, the more I think about it, I would say they do just as good as many in Wichita which is to say that there are plenty of people running reds as the light is changing, some getting an early start, and many switching lanes in the intersection. Out on the freeway, though, the similarities dissappear quickly. Blinkers are optional (though I have seen a fair number using them, much to my surprise) and weaving through traffic at high speeds is the norm. There is not such thing as following distance and I haven't seen anybody moderating their speed for legal reasons. I have seen several police cars out on the road but I have never seen anybody being pulled over for traffic violations. Though I don't know any Beijing traffic laws, I'm guessing the situation is similar to how such matters work in the US: the written law aside, in practice the police prosecute only the gross offenders. Again, just a guess.

The much more interesting and puzzling role in traffic goes to the two-wheeled vehicles and pedestrians. There are a lot of bicycles in Beijing; not as many as I would have guessed but still way more than in any US city I have visited or even heard about. At the subway station there is a covered parking area that can hold several hundred bikes. In front of the apartment building there is a bike rack with at least another hundred parked. Bicycles are used in virtually everyway a car would be in the US. I've seen bicycles (well, tricycles technically) with large trailers hauling goods, bikes with a seat on the back for a second passenger to ride side-saddle, bikes with a street vendors cooking grill, fuel, and ingredients ready to go.

Also of GREAT interest to me are battery-powered bikes that are relatively common here. They travel fairly quickly (more quickly than most of the recreation-speed pedalers out on the road, at least), run silently and don't require any pedaling. I have desired such a bicycle of my own back home and have looked into the few brands and conversion kits that exist in the US. If it wouldn't be so expensive to ship back, I would buy one here. My guess is that one in 15 bicycles here in Beijing is battery-powered.

Lastly, there are very few scooters or motorcycles. When I visited Taiwain about a decade ago, they were the predominant form of street transportation. I don't know exactly why, but they aren't very popular up here. I would say that one in every 40 two-wheeled vehicle is a gas-powered scooter or motorcycle. Most are on the smaller side (maybe not even 50cc) though I have seen larger scooters like my own and even one full-fledged sport bike. I asked my hosts about this and their guess was the weather made travelling at high speeds in the cold air too chilling for most people.

Anyway, back to traffic. Though cars more or less follow the traffic signals, bicycles and pedestrians categorically do not. Due to the large intersections, there are actually separate lights for the pedestrians and bicycles but both are essentially ignored. Bicycles in particular seem to do whatever they please. They will move through the intersectionin whatever manner they feel is most expediant and won't hesitate to change directions, move diagonally through multiple lanes, or pool in an island in the middle of the intersection waiting for an opening. They are the true lawless on the road, most never moving more than a fast jog yet permeating the traffic of cars and buses and moving in their own way.

The pedestrians, though equally independent of the law, have a much simplier behavior: they cross the street whenever and wherever they feel like it. Pedestrians collect at the corners and once a large enough group has assembled and an opening presents itself, the group will move. The crossing can take place roughly when the signals indicate but not necessarily so. If a group has collected at a corner and a self-appointed leader begins crossing, more often than not the group will move with him or her, regardless of the traffic; there is safety in numbers. Sometimes there will be defectors who decides the "leader" has made a bad choice and will themselves wait for a better opportunity and/or another pack to cross with. There are often lone-wolf pedestrians who seem not to care for life and limb and will step out into traffic given even the slightest opening. The long and short of it is that there is nearly a steady stream of pedestrians flowing through the intersections most of the time.

Given all of this, there are two obvious questions: how is every intersection not a tangled mess all the time and how are traffic accidents not horribly common? Though I haven't reached any conlcusions I feel highly confident in, it is clear that traffic here is much more of a negotiation than a matter of law. Sometimes the bus yields to the pedestrians, sometimes the pedestrians scatter to make way for the bus. If the way seems clear, the bicycles may start and if left-turning traffic shows up in front of them, they may stop or they may work their way through it and force the cars to yield. The mystery to me is how the negotiation is communicated, how the deal is struck and who has the upper-hand at any given time. It is clear by the lack of serious accidents (I haven't seen any collisions other than pedestrains bumping into each other) that the system works fairly well, but for an outsider like me, the workings of the system are non-obvious. In fact, it is probably more dangerous for me simply because I can't communicate appropriately during these traffic negotiations.

Though all of these may seem to inefficient or unsafe I could not easily say that this is the case. It seems to work well for them and not having to wait your turn at intersections (for bicycles and pedestrians at least) IS more efficient. I guess the BIG sacrifice made is that of corporate responsiblity. In a very real sense, any problems you may have out on the road are nobody's fault but your own. There is no real assignment of blame if something goes wrong, no legitmate cries that the other party broke the rules. At the end of the day, you are the sole party responsible for getting where you need to go safely.

All that said, I still think I like law-based traffic better. At least until I figure out how to make things work for me here and each street-crossing isn't and adventure.

Everyday Adventure

Going outside feels risky.

I'm not worried about being mugged or my pocket being picked. I'm worried about the truth of my complete inability to survive on my own in Beijing being clearly seen by all the people I pass on the street everyday. I don't say a word, I try to look confident but I know I'm a sham. I'm a fish out of water praying that nobody notices my gills and fins flailing around trying to find some way to survive. I try to pretend that I know my way around, that I understand how traffic works and when it is OK and not OK to cross the street, that I can manage to get to where I need to go without incident. None of these are true.

I seek to be unobtrusive, to blend in with the crowd but this is a fantasy. I'm a tall white man in the middle of the the capital of China. I am staying in the university district so there are other non-Asians walking about but this doesn't change how I feel. Everybody stares. They're looking for the slightest sign of my ineptitude so that they can laugh or yell at me and let me know that I'm not fooling anyone.

I can't say more than "hello", "goodbye", "thank you" and count to four in Chinese. I don't know if you knew this, but these words don't get you very far in life. Yesterday, with great trepidation and anxiety, my wife and went to a Chinese restaurant on our own to have lunch. We faked our way through the process of getting seated and managed to order food from the pictures menu quite easily. Then the waitress asked a question.

My wife and I stared blankly. She repeated the question and we looked at her and shrugged. We pulled out the phrase book and leafed our way through it, her looking over our shoulders, looking at the printed Chinese translations. After a few more futile attempts, she gave up and left us. Tea and then the food we had ordered came. When it didn't seem that any rice was coming my wife suggested I ask for some. Ask for rice with the meal in China? Really? Well, we did seem to be lacking this key item so I pulled out the phrase book and used bilingual dictionary in the back to find the word for rice.

There is was. That word that she had been saying over and over again. She was asking if we wanted any rice. I flagged her down and foolishly pointed to the Chinese script in the dictionary. She gave us a frustrated smile and in short time we had two bowls of rice.

We are helpless here. Our adventure in eating out ended well, I suppose. We got food, we paid for it and we were only a minor hassle to the restaurant staff. The whole, time, though, I was on edge. How did we pay the check? Is this number on the check our total or our table number? Are they going to overcharge us? How much was each of these dishes again? All of this in what must be one of the most trivial transactions that can be made.

Living everyday in a place like this would be days and days filled with confusion, frustration, anxiety and helplessness. How do you survive in a place where you worry about not being able to buy groceries? It is humbling to have the cultural skills of a four-year-old. It is stressful to be in such a position and have the responsiblities of an adult. Only by the grace of God, could we survive in such a life.

Energy in Beijing

With climate change, renewable energy, and emissions control all the rage in the western media these days, China has been receiving a fair share of focus regarding its development and energy policy. The arguement that it and India are making revolves around the fact that the western world has polluted the whole globe into this mess and that it should be ones making the biggest changes in carbon emissions as it is the most developed and able to do so. The implicit corollary to this stance is that India and China should be allowed to pollute just as agressively as the the US and Europe did in the past so that they too can bring about industrial and economic development without the undo burden of trying to do so in an environmentally sound manner.

With oil prices having risen dramatically in the past decade or so and all the industrial development in China I would have expected energy costs to be at a premuim. Based on talks with my hosts, I would have to say that I am very wrong. They say that their utility bills are a negligible cost in living here in Beijing. Last night I learned that $60 (US) is sufficient to cover electricity for three months or so. (Fun fact for the day: in this apartment complex, the electricity is pre-paid. There's a little card reader next to the meter and you "charge-up" the meter with a special card loaded electricity credits.) We've been told that there is no need to worry about leaving lights on, using lots of hot water, or turning the heat up when it gets cold at night. Granted, their apartment isn't very large (I'm going to guess 500 square feet) and there are only two of them but a similar living situation in the US would not lead to such a care-free atitude when it comes to paying the power bill.

The cause of low energy costs is both mysterious and obvious. The obvious part strikes you immediately upon landing in the city: the air is very polluted nearly all the time. China has abundant coal resources and does whatever it takes to provide the power to keep the industrial wheels turning. Vendors on the street burn charcoal and coal to keep their food warm and smokestacks in the area seem to almost always been emitting...something.

The mysterious part (or maybe "perplexing" would be a better word) is that, without outside information, you would never guess that the world is growing more concerned about the need for clean energy. Something that is so pressing and important in my life back in the US doesn't seem to bear any notice here. I would guess that Beijing residents here would prefer to have cleaner air (and may downright enjoy the improvement during August when the Olympics are here) but I don't know what price (not just financial) they would be willing to pay to have clear skies. Or, more specifically, I don't know if anybody really cares right now as the rapid economic development seems to be bringing welcome improvement in lifestyle.

I don't know what the implications of this is, but I would feel safe in saying that the citizens of China are probably not the ones who will be leading the charge toward a change in energy policy. I'm also going to guess that the Chinese government is more concerned with modernization and is willing to deal with the pollution problem later. We'll see in the long-term how all of this shapes up; right now I'm not optimistic.

Made in China

I've heard it many times in many places but the reality is sinking in now that I can see it for myself: labor in China is cheap. Our hosts have a cleaning lady who comes by twice a weak to clean their apartment. They are not rich by any measure but the cost of having her come and do some of the housework is affordable, especially in light of the benefit of having those hours they would have spent cleaning now free for other pursuits. There are car washes out on the street where, in the dead of winter, several guys will clean your car for you with buckets of soapy water and rags. The garabage man is a large flat-beg truck with a guy or two who toss bags of trash onto the bed. Everywhere there are people doing manual labor in situations that you just don't see in the USA. This cheap labor is the driving force behind so many companies moving manufacturing over to China. All other factors aside, it is actually possible to assemble a large force of labors who will, by hand, do just about anything that needs doing. And they will do it at a price that is cheaper than automation anywhere else in the world can provide.

Part of the cause of the cheap labor is the large migrant work force that occupies many of the cities. These migrants are almost always from the rural areas where the opportunities for livelihood consist of farming, and, like in the USA, many of the younger people are looking for something more rewarding than tilling the soil. In China, though, the government requires you to be registered and residing in a certain city and you are not technically allowed to work outside that area. But, like the traffic laws here, the letter of the law and reality are not necessarily highly related. Many of the workers from the cities are essentially illegal immigrants working for low wages because it is better than not having any work at all back in the country. The opportunities are in the cities and even if it isn't 100% legal, they come anyway trying to make a better life. Think of this as the same problem the US has with Mexico but without the international border.

I'm sure there are many other complexities I don't understand right now and that this is not the whole story but it is one significant factor influencing the labor market in major Chinese cities. Obviously, there are jobs that will never be able to be done manually (making computer chips, for example) and until China embraces automation, companies in such lines of business will be few and far between. In the mean time, the "Made in China" label will continue to be the results of millions and millions of labors hand-working products into existance.

What Day Is It Again?

We have arrived in Beijing and travel was incident free. Well, almost.

Snow in the "mid-west" (is Kansas part of the mid-west?) kept the flight schedules volatile Saturday morning when we were trying to fly out of Wichita. There was very little snow falling there but apparently in Chicago (our connecting destination) there was trouble and our flight was delayed almost two hours. United, though, did an excellent job of making the delay bearable by not having us board the plane until we had an arrival slot in Chicago. They even went one step further by monitoring all our connecting flights and re-booking travellers on the spot before we had even left. I didn't expect this level of service from the notorious airline.

Our flight out of Chicago was not delayed and shrunk our generous three hour lay-over into less than an hour. We caught the flight and joined the mass of college students returning home for Christmas break. Seriously, all of economy-class save a dozen or so people were non-white, twenty-somethings. Speaking of economy-class, we didn't get to see the upper-deck on our 747 but the announcements mentioned passengers in "suites" and it was clear that their experience was quite different than ours. The simple fact that a full plane left very little room for us in economy to even get up and walk around made me realize that we really were travelling the modern equivalent of steerage class. Not that I'm bitter; even that next class up from us cost several thousand more per ticket.

Compared to my previous trans-Pacific flights, time passed very quickly. I spent most of my time watching the in-flight movies and playing video games on a recently received Gameboy Advance. Katie says I'm addicted but I insist I can stop any time. Just got to do this one more thing then I'll be done. I promise. For real this time.

Our flight left Saturday morning, we arrived in Beijing Sunday evening and as I write this, are enjoying Monday morning, the first full day here in China. We'll see if my body can make it through the day without jet-lag taking over.

In just one week...

...my wife and I will be in Beijing. We're going out to visit some friends for a while and are eagerly awaiting the trip. The run-up these past few weeks has been surprisingly un-stressful. We've got a suitcase full of food items that they cannot get there, chocolate chips making up large portion so far. We've each purchased our long underwear to deal with the cold (particularly if we take a trip up to Harbin, one of the major cities in the far north).

All of this planning is taking place during the already busy holiday season which is a big part of the reason I haven't been faithful in posting. We've just this past week finished getting gift for everybody and are still working on making arrangements for the time we are gone. Getting out of work has not been a big deal for us but it helps that we have been planning on the trip for most of this year.

So that's the story. Oh, and my brother and his wife should be having their first-born any day now. Lots of excite in the family right now.

I'm Famous

If you go to the home page of the iTunes Music Store and look at the list of the current top-selling songs you’ll see (at the time of this writing) that a song titled “Apologize” is at the number three spot (I’ve seen it at the number two spot in past weeks). This song is a remix done by Timbaland of a song by OneRepublic. If you check out the OneRepublic website you’ll see that one of the members of the band is one Zach Filkins. Zach and I were on the same floor our freshman year of college and I can say, unequivocally, that he is the best guitar-player I have ever seen in-person. He is classically trained, spent some time in Spain, and was the first guitar player I ever met who did more than strum chords. Since the band hasn’t released and album yet (that changes this November 20th) it is pretty amazing that their song is doing as well as it is. I’m hoping their other songs make greater use of Zach’s talents; I’m encouraged by the fact that one of the band members frequently plays cello.

This is my inch of glory for now. I’m “friends” with a guy that is a in band that is doing pretty well right now. I don’t our relationship is such that I’ll be getting any free concert tickets in the near future but its still fun to see somebody you know who wanders into the public eye. Here’s hoping the band does well and enjoys their fame, however long it lasts.

My Exciting Friday

A little over a week ago I was spending my Friday off doing work on the house. (Truth be told, this is how I have been spending a lot of my time since we purchased the house. Someday soon, it won't be the focus of my life like it is right now.) I was doing work up in the attic and got up early so I could be up there in the cool of the morning. By noon, I had been working for about six hours and with the increasing temperature, I was ready to call it a day. I noticed the mail had come so I grabbed my depleted drill battery, hit the garage door button and scooted underneath the descending door. I grabbed the mail and learned pretty quickly I had made a serious mistake.

I had just locked myself out of my house.

Well, Katie was going to be getting back from work in the next hour or so and there wasn't much I could do in the mean time so.... The best answer I could come up with was to go out to the front lawn and lay down in the nice green grass. I came to think of this as mandatory relaxation, a simple pleasure I hadn't enjoyed in a while.

After about half an hour of half-sleeping I heard a truck pull up in front of our house. I looked up and was confronted with three paramedics rushing out of an ambulance. They were moving toward me.

I sat up and greeted them. "Hi there. Can I help you?"

They stared at me kind of blankly. "Uh, yeah, we got a call about somebody needing medical help. Are you OK?"

I assured them I was and when it became apparent that somebody had mistaken me, the napping neighbor for a dead body, the paramedics were happy to get on their way. From a few of the comments they made it seemed that this sort of thing happens somewhat regularly.

I laid back down ready to resume my doze when I heard another car pull up. I looked up and saw a police officer getting out of his car and headed my way. (Not long after he got there I saw a fire truck drive by as well. It slowed and when it was obvious their services were not needed, they continued on. I don't know why they were last; the fire station is just two blocks down the street. Maybe they were already out on call.)

The police officer came over and began what is probably a routine interrogation.

"What are you doing out here?"

"I locked myself out of my house and I'm waiting for my wife to get home."

"But why are you out here in front?"

"I was taking a nap while I waited. The grass is best out here in front."

Pause.

"Can I get your name, please?"

"Sure. Trevor Hardy."

"And why do you have a battery out here?"

"I was taking it inside to recharge it when I locked myself out."

Pause.

"I'm gonna need to see some ID, sir."

"Sorry but its in my wallet inside the house."

"So you don't have any ID on you?"

"No I was working on my house this morning and I don't normally carry my wallet with me when I do housework", I replied. I was starting to get a bit annoyed. I had been taking a nap on my own lawn and somebody had called 911 on me. Granted, we live in a neighborhood of retired people and we were kind of new to the neighborhood but I had been wearing these exact same clothes for six weeks while working on the house. How could I not be known to the neighbors? I had met many of them and knew their names. Heck, I was the one who, at eight on a Saturday morning, was outside drilling and banging away making a racket.

"Can I get your social security number?" The rebellious nature in me was starting to flare up. I'm on my own lawn. I shouldn't have to prove who I am to be on my own lawn. I can understand that they had no way of knowing who I was but it shouldn't matter. I was taking a nap on my lawn. I don't think they would have had the probable cause needed to arrest me and I was tempted to politely refuse to cooperate at this point but I knew that even if they didn't have grounds to arrest me, they could do so anyways and make the afternoon even more protracted and exciting. I also knew Katie would not be happy if she had to get me from the police station.

I grudgingly consented.

"Why haven't you called your wife?"

"I don't have a cell phone. And even if I did, I still wouldn't be carrying it with me while I was doing housework."

"Does she have a cell phone?"

"Yes."

"What's her number? We can give her a call for you." I gave the number and while he was dialing he got his handcuffs out.

What?! I was still sitting down on the lawn, doing my best to politely answer his questions. It must have been a matter of routine procedure because I couldn't understand how I could possibly be a threat. By this point a second officer had arrived on the scene (a bicycle cop). I was outnumbered two to one and I was on the ground. They could have each kicked me a half-dozen times before I could get up. Why were handcuffs necessary?

Katie didn't answer the phone but her voice-mail greeting was enough for the officers; "Katie Hardy" it said. Also, a call into the station matched my name and social security number. The officers seemed satisfied and decided to wrap it up.

The officers were never rude and didn't attempt to intimidate me (probably). They were perfunctory, suspicious, and didn't smile. I wouldn't call them friendly and I wouldn't call them hostile. I guess that's OK. I suppose this is part of being a cop and, not knowing what it is like to be a police officer, I don't have much room to complain. I wouldn't call it a positive experience and I was glad that it ended the way it did.

As a postscript of sorts, Katie was walking down to the grocery store a few days later (walking to grocery store + bringing your own bags = I love my wife and her conservation efforts) and one of our neighbors stopped her to ask about all the fuss. He didn't come right out and say it but by the end of the conversation Katie was pretty convinced he had called 911. He came over to talk to me last night and thought we had met before and I didn't have a beard then. He was confused: we had never met before and I've had this beard for about ten years. I think I agree with my wife.

Lord of the Rings

I recently re-discovered books on tape (well, CD) (well, iPod) and have been listening to a few instead of the normal slew of podcasts that occupy my ears during much of the work day. One of the more unique offereings was a 1981 dramatization of "Lord of the Rings" that the BBC did. Not having the books memorized and with the movies being more freshly implanted into my brain, I'm guessing that "dramatization" is the right word versus, say, dramatic reading. The entire trilogy is presented in thriteen discs so I feel pretty confident in saying that a sizable portion of the material was edited out and I'm guessing that not all lines the actors speak are vertabim from the original texts.

But there are actors, though, and there is radio drama. The most confusing part for me, though, is trying to reconcile the characterizations from the movie with the interpretations that these actors present over twenty years ago. For example, instead of Aragorn (Viggo Mortenson's character) being presented as a Hamlet-esque brooding and conflicted, he is portrayed much more stereotypically as the confident, heroic, steadfast masculine leader. Gimli doesn't have the low gravelly voice but instead has a much more formal and, shall I say, British.

The most confusing part of listening to this recording, though, are the hobbits. The actor voicing Merry sounds like Elijah Wood and Frodo Baggins is voiced by Ian Holmes. The same Ian Holmes who played Bilbo Baggins in the films. It took me nearly the entirety of the book to not think of Frodo as Bilbo.

When in the US...

I struck up a conversation with a co-worker the other day who I found out had immigrated from Iran when he was 18. He literally escaped the country on camel-back riding for several days (actually, the traveling was all done at night) through a sand-storm with human smugglers to make it out of Iran several years after the Islamic Revolution.

There's a lot more to the story I heard but the highlight for me was hearing how he learned English. After working all day (and most of the evening) he would come home and watch late-night TV. His favorite and most helpful show in learning English: "The Honeymooners." To this day he loves the show and can't get enough of it.

"Die Hard"

Katie and I saw "Live Free or Die Hard" last night and it is the best completely non-redeeming movie I've seen in a while. This is pure summer-blockbuster, mindless-action, entertaining (at least for guys) kind of movie. It is unrealistic, violent, humorous, not too long, and worth seeing in a simple escapist kind of way. I haven't seen any of the other movies in the series and would now like to; I'm hoping they will be just as good. There are a lot of movies out there that try to be good action movies and fail miserably. This is not one of those movies and is more on the order of the "Indiana Jones" films; just with slightly less plot.

On principle, I would never give more than four stars to an action movie. This film has earned all four in my book.

Opening Hours at Target

Shortly before a doctor's appointment this morning I stopped by Target to get a welcome-back-home-from-a-boring-business-trip gift for my wife. To my surprise, I arrived before the store opened at 8am and ended up waiting in the car for a few minutes.

I wasn't the only one there early, though. Standing at the doors of the store, waiting patiently but clearly eagerly, were three late middle-aged men. They stood there, talking in a friendly manner. I didn't think much of it until the door opened and I saw all three walking quickly into the store. I was about fifty feet behind them and could see through the glass doors that they were all walking together apparently headed to the same location. My curiousity was piqued and stepped up my pace so as not to lose them.

It wasn't until they turned into the toy section that a light went off in my head: these are collectors. I had a good friend in Boise who was a Star Wars toy collector and he also happened to work at Target. He educated me in the ways of the toy collecting culture and one of the prime strategies these guys (and they are mostly men) use in furthering their hobby is early-hours toy-aisle scouring. My friend Jason, having insider knowledge concerning delivery dates and times, was quite adept at picking up the hard-to-find items and had literally a room full of Star Wars toys.

I followed the men into the toy section and my suspicions proved correct: all three were crowding around the Matchbox Cars, rifling through the cardboard and plastic containers hanging from the display pegs looking for any vehicle they didn't have. A Target clerk was there with them, seeming to enjoy helping in the hunt as well. One of the customers seemed to have found a vehicle to add to his collection.

My only thought as I passed them was how disputes over "rare" cars were settled. They didn't seem to be in competition with each other but surely if they were fanatical enough to get up early to beat all the non-collecting customers, they took this hobby somewhat seriously. Maybe that large male clerk was there for other reasons as well; I'm betting this isn't the first time these men have speed-walked over to the toy section when the store opened.

Today, though, everything appeared peaceful and as far as hobbies go, you could do worse than Matchbox Cars.

Of Showerheads and Garage Door Openers

On Friday Katie purchased two new showersheads for the house. Both the previous units, were, uhmm, unsatisfactory. The shower in the master bathroom had a miserly flow with the water doing little more than trickling out. In contrast, the front bathroom shower gushed water; if only the water would flow through the showerhead rather than around the outside.

Armed with the two new heads, I went to work Saturday morning. The replacement in the master bath was as straightforward and it seemed it should be. The old head came off cleanly and the new one went on smoothly. This is how home improvement should be.

It was in the second bathroom that the Spectre of Simple Things Made Difficult appeared. The shower in this bathroom was a bit unique in that the pipe carrying the water to the showerhead was not inside the wall. Instead, it was screwed into the downspout and clamped to the outside of the wall to hold it in place. This shower pipe was curved at the top to allow the showerhead to face into the tub (rather than up towards the ceiling) making a sort of metal cane shape. In fact, this pipe works very well as a cane.

I know this because I ended up having to remove the whole thing as my attempts to gracefully detach the old showerhead also took nearly all the threading with it. It was in carrying the pipe around many hardware stores that I realized just how nice a cane it made. And from the funny looks I got from the friendly but ultimately unhelpful clerks, I came to understand that pipes such as these are hard to come by these days.

The hunt continues. We can buy conversion kits that contain this funny pipe but they are relatively expensive and come with other parts we don't really need. There are other alternative to replacing the pipe that we might explore if we reach a complete dead end but for now, we will keep looking.

Thankfully, this was the Spectre's only real appearance for the rest of the day. I spent the afternoon and evening installing a new garage door opener for the north garage door. It was my first time to both cut through drywall and spend any time in the attic. (While in the attic I learned we have very little insulation; both Katie and I agree that this needs to change before winter comes.) By that evening, the garage door was up and functioning. There are a few tweaks that still need to be made (like putting a rubber liner on the foot of the door so that it seals against the driveway) but it is more or less done.

It feels good when things work out. I'm thankful that this task didn't end in frustration. In addition, when I go to replace the south garage door opener, I'll have a much better idea what needs to be done and I'll spend less time scrutinizing the instruction manual. (Let the record show, though, that these instructions were pretty darn good.) In the case of both openers, I also need to made a change to the electrical outlets above each opener so that they can plug in easily. I should be an easy fix.

All in all, two for three isn't all that bad for one weekend.

Success!

Thanks to a very helpful hardware store sales assistant and the grace of God, I was able to get the dishwasher up and running last night. It took no more than four hours counting the time in the crawlspace figuring out how our plumbing is done and a trip to the hardware store. Here are the highlights (as much as home improvement can have highlights):

-Ace Hardware saved the day. As I was fumbling around in the plumbing section of the store a sales associate with some knowledge asked if I needed help. I was able to describe the task at hand and in just a few minutes he had talked me through the procedure and showed me the hardware I would need. Not only was this great service that put the competition to shame, but it saved me quite a bit of time and probably an extra trip to the hardware store.

-Pulling out the dishwasher did reveal a severely kinked copper tube. This was what we suspected was the source of our problem.

-I used a propane torch to remove the existing valve. To protect the cabinets from the torch, I got this cool flame-proof "cloth"; I have no idea what it was made of but it worked very well. It looks like a book-sized piece of aluminum foil with thick cotton glued to one side and, oddly, the cotton side faces the flame.

-The new valve is leak free and much easier to turn by hand.

-I need to get a set of drill bits. I was thinking ahead enough to buy one large bit for the hole I would need for the new hose but not so far to realize that drilling a smaller pilot hole first would be a good idea. Oh well, I made it work.

-I know how to shut-off the water to the property from the valve at the meter. There is also a master shut-off in the basement but it doesn't stop the water to our one exterior faucet.

-I have a much better understanding of the plumbing and duct-work in our house due to some quality time in the crawlspace.

Special thanks to my wife who acted as the standby fire brigade and valve installation tester/operator.

Lastly, thanks also to Michael who loaned me the propane torch and showed me how difficult it can be to light. I got us a striker so we wouldn't have to deal with all of that mess next time.

Home Improvement and Frustration

I spent all of Sunday afternoon and evening trying to get our new dishwasher installed. Three connections: electrical, drain water, and hot water. Two of the three were simple and straight-forward; it was the hot water that just wouldn't co-operate. For reasons I don't understand, the connector at the end of the line just wouldn't catch on the threads of the dishwasher. Literally hours and hours of laying on my side getting more and more wet as I try to get these two parts to connect. By hour nine I had finally gotten it all together and was ready to test it.

The copper tube behind the washer had kinked as I was pushing the washer in. I would have to take it all apart to replace the kinked line. Sigh.

It is hard for me to express the level of despondency I felt as the day wore on. Just three connections, that's all and it seemed like very little was going my way. I couldn't find the right fitting,I damaged the fitting, the stores were all closed, the joint leaked, my wrench wouldn't fit... By dinner time, I was feeling completely demoralized. It was by the grace of God that I kept at it and was able to "finish" the project that evening. (Only to find that I wasn't finished at all.)

I think I have found the magic formula for personal demotivation: establish simple and achievable expectations and then fail to meet them in every way. Expectations are so key to getting me frustrated and (eventually) in despair. When I feel that I should be able to accomplish something, especially something that I think is simple, I lose hope when I fail to make rapid progress. Ironically, it is much harder to frustrate me with complex, long, or difficult tasks because I expect there to be trials along the way. Simple things made hard are aggravating.

This is one reason I switched positions at work. In my previous position, I would be assigned a simple task, usually a minor engineering change to some part of the aircraft. I would be excited because the technical part of the task was simple and I knew I could complete it quickly. And I would. Then would come the hours of paperwork necessary to get that change approved. Frustration in a bottle.

Ignorance of the details of a task also contribute. I look at the dishwasher and I see three things I need to do. In reality, there are twelve steps but I think the other nine are hardly worth mentioning; they're simple. When these nine tasks end up taking a lot longer than I expect, I get frustrated.

I think this home-ownership thing is going to be character building because I can see "simple" things like this are going to continue to pop-up. And they will probably appear simple until the little details start taking a lot more time than I would have guessed. I think I'm going to praying a lot more now and trying to remember that I'm not the one calling the shots and this is all in God's hands. Maybe I won't even get frustrated.

Smooth Move

Thanks to the efforts of a dozen or so of our friends, our transplant from a rental to our new home went very well. Faster than I would have imagined, actually. We started at 10 am and finished up right as the pizza arrived at 1 pm. Katie and I had done a pretty good job of packing and the gals that showed up make short work of what we hadn't got to. It only took two U-Haul trips (plus about ten car loads from our helpers) to get it all done.

There's actually not much more to say than that. Much thanks to all those who helped; you made a laborious task easy.

The Big Day

My absence here for the past few weeks has a legitimate excuse this time (unlike many other multi-week breaks): my wife and I are closing on a house tomorrow morning.

The process has been very quick by nearly every standard. We will have gone from deciding to look for a house to buy to actually owning one in nearly exactly four weeks time. Two of those weeks have been between having an accepted offer on the house and inking the paperwork tomorrow. We've spent hours looking, inspecting, doing paperwork, arranging financing, and lately, packing.

The house we are purchasing we toured our first night of visits with the realtor; it was the ninth of ten we planned to visit that night. Our realtor is a former home-builder and he was impressed with it (as were we) so we decided to go back the next day to get a better look at it in the daylight. By the end of that visit, we decided to put an offer on the house and found out that evening our offer had been accepted.

The next few weeks were spent working out the details of financing, having the official home inspection done, and getting all the ducks in a row. There have been a few stressful moments, the most recent of which involved trying to get a check to clear quickly so that the necessary funds could be in the correct account, but it looks like all the detail-work is done.

We are thankful that God has provided a house for us and thankful that we are able to afford it. Now we are going to be praying that we are good stewards of the gift we have been given and don't let our lives fixate on home improvement. We want our house to be a tool to bless others and not the penultimate obsession in our lives.

Anyway, as of tomorrow, our little slice of the earth can be found right here. We'll post some pictures and maybe even some video of the new digs.

It's Here!

This evening I will walk into the downtown branch of the Wichita Public Library, plunk down one shiny quarter, and receive a two week loan on the final Harry Potter book. This is the first time I've paid to use the "hold" system at the library and I only did it because I figured, even with 100 copies in circulation, my chances of finding this insanely popular book actually on the shelves in the next few months was pretty slim.

Now I just have to find the time to read it.

Corporate IT

For the entire time I have worked at Cessna (2.5 years), I have had a wimpy computer. For whatever reason, when I started I was given a computer that was handed down to me from a administratice assitant. It was slow. Very slow. The monitor was a dark 17" CRT. Nearly all the other engineers had flat panel displays and took advantage of their "superiority" to let me know that my status on the nerd totem pole was not that impressive.

That has all changed.

Due to the system requirements of some new software we are using, our group is getting their computers upgraded and mine was the first to arrive this afternoon. Dual 20" flat panel displays. Eight times the memory I had before. Four times the processor power than that previous pokey computer. I sit at my desk and see a wide swath of computing expanse and have the power to move through it. Its great.

The only downside is the inferior upgrade procedure we have in place. I will probably be spending several hours tomorrow installing a bunch of software and drivers so that I can get back to doing my job. For whatever reason, the IT people don't feel it is their responsibility to deliver the computer in a usable state; they copy over some of the data but not all of it. I've already spent a few hours on the phone with tech support trying to get the access rights I need to re-install the software I need to do my job.

Maybe tomorrow will go more smoothly.

Hall of Fame

This past weekend Katie and I went down to Oklahoma to be present for a unique ceremony; Katie's father was being inducted into his high school football hall of fame. I know it meant a lot to him that we were able to make it and though I'm still learning about "football culture" and was a bit over my head, I was gald we were able to make it. Now I have a father-in-law who is a (high school football) Hall of Fame Inductee. That's pretty cool.

Fillings

I knew this was going to be a different visit to the dental office when the good doctor told his assist, “Can you go get the diagonal bit for me?” Actually I knew since my check-up a month ago that this day would come: my first filing. Despite my diligent efforts to keep my teeth clean (brushing several times a day, flossing nearly daily), a fancy gadget during my last visit identified two teeth in need of filing. It ruined my day.

So there I was, getting my first fillings. Before we got into it, I asked the dentist what I could do to prevent cavities. The answers were, unfortunately, not very helpful. He explained the difficulties in cleaning the molar surfaces (where these cavities were) and said there wasn’t a lot more that could be done more than diligent brushing. Unlike some other dentists I’ve had in the past, he wasn’t super excited about the electronic toothbrushes (Sonicare or Oral B) but said they do help. Sigh.

The procedure got off to a great start. The fancy gadget used to test my teeth for cavities tested negative on one tooth this time which meant fewer fillings (and a chance to redeem myself). Though I have never had a painful dental experience, I think I inherited our cultures fear of dental work that morning and was apprehensive. I had nothing to fear. A topical anesthetic masked any pain associated with the injection that numbed up half my mouth. When my mouth was sufficiently immune to any prodding and poking, the dreaded drill came out. For the next fifteen or so minutes (longer than it took for the anesthesia to do its magic) I had four hands in my mouth, each with a tool. The dentist and assist hardly communicated at all; it seemed a very routine procedure (no surprises = a good thing).

In about 45 minutes or so, it was all done. The assistant said the filing sets up immediately so I could eat right away. Well, almost right away; until the anesthesia wore off, there was no way I was going to be able to chew straight, much less taste my food. I ended up having to wait nearly three more hours before I felt comfortable eating without risk of biting my lips, cheek, or tongue. No residual pain, no difficulty chewing. Now all I have to do is stay on top of the brushing and hope we won’t have to do that again any time soon.

Fun New Word of the Day

"Bridezilla."

I heard an interview with a gal in the midst of planning her own wedding use this term. Her definition was simple: if you use the phrase "Its my wedding!" to make sure you get what you want then you are a bridezilla.

I wish I would have known this term these past few years when it seemed I was going five or six weddings per year; it would have come in handy.

(By the way, the interview was on my favorite personal finance radio show, American Public Media's Marketplace Money.)

I'm Fat

There’s no two ways about it; I’m fat. By any measure I can think of, any website I check, any “authority” I can dream up, I’m overweight. I’ve even gone as far as to ask my male friends who are roughly my height how much they weight and invariably it is at least 20 lbs less than I do.

In Idaho I biked to and from work nearly everyday. This definitely helped me stay relatively fit but even then, I always had a layer of squish around my waist and I never weighed less than 185 lbs. I think people thought of my as “healthy” and maybe I was but compared to my roommates who could out-run, out-climb, and out-bike me; I never felt it. I also didn’t compare favorably with my immediate family in this department; I am easily the least athletic and most pudgy of my siblings.

In early fall of 2005 I had a back injury that eliminated virtually all activity in my life. Though I had been bicycling to work, I was forced to quit and spent most evenings after work laying down trying to mitigate the pain. Through physical therapy and a few steroid injections, I gradually regained some degree of activity in my lifestyle but didn’t jump back into it quickly. I had grown used to do doing nothing but lying around and any benefit from years of bicycle commuting was quickly being erased. By the end of the summer in 2006, I had finished up with physical therapy and was probably back to 80%. I still couldn’t bike to work, though, and didn’t lead an active lifestyle outside of the back exercises I continued to do at home.

It wasn’t until a chance meeting with a scale late that fall showing me at 214lbs that I decided I needed to do something about this. I brought this topic up with my wife and, due to her own fight with familial weight problems, agreed that we needed to do something about it. We read books. We started exercising together. We became more careful in what we ate. And we lost weight. Not in the cataclysmic volumes that the books said but we both noticed that we left healthier and weighed less.

Then Christmas came and though we didn’t gain any weight, we didn’t loose any either. Due to a lot of factors, we reached a plateau of sorts and both of us have felt that we are still a good ways from where we need to be. After talking this over again and trying to figure out the best thing to do, we’ve decided to take things up a notch. We’ve developed an exercise schedule that is more active and we’re trying to find ways to measure the level of activity during exercise. We’ve decided to attempt a super disciplined approach to what we eat by weighing and cataloging ALL that passes through our mouths. We’re hoping that by measuring more carefully the food we eat and our level of activity we will be able to more clearly see where the faults in our lifestyle lie.

The catch in all of this is that it will require a high degree of discipline, one that we aren’t used to enacting in this area of our lives. Some would say that this regimented approach is simply setting ourselves up for failure and that most people aren’t able effectively stick with a program like this. Those people are probably right. My wife and I have discussed this at length and agree this will not be easy. But then again, for us, leading a healthy lifestyle never has been. If it was easy, we wouldn’t need to do this.

So this is where we start, again. This week has been a practice week of sorts where we are on our new exercise routine and beginning to weight and measure our food portions. Next week, we begin it for real.

If you believe in luck, then wish us luck.

Bicycling to Work

For the first time since my back injury, I bicycled into work today. Well, that's not quite true. This past Sunday I did a trial run in the evening to get a feel for how long it would take. That trip was 97 minutes round-trip with a few minutes break in the middle at work. The route I took was non-ideal (despite some of it being officially a bike path) and so today I tried a different, more residential route. You can see the two routes here. My time bicycling to work today: 39 minutes. I don't think I'll be able to bicycle everyday but the success from today makes me think this should be a pretty vialbe form of exercise.

The main difficulty will be the fact that Cessna's eastside gym (the Cessna Activity Center) doesn't open until 8am and there really isn't a good way to get between it and the office. Result: I'm giving myself "washcloth showers" in the handicap stall before work. When I bicycled out to the west-side facility, the gyn was right across the street and was open by 6:30am when I arrived. Those were the days.

Bad Day

My scooter was blown over by the wind during the work day and dented a car parked next to it. I left a note for the owner but haven't heard back from him or her.

I went to the dentist this morning and found out I have two small cavities that will need filling. These are the first cavities I've had. Despite my recent efforts to be very diligent in flossing and brushing, I still lost. Apparently I'm doing something wrong.

Sigh.

I wish today had gone differently.

God Cancelled Church Today

This morning, in the middle of church, the tornado sirens went off. One of the church security guys quickly ducked out out of the service to verify (somehow) and came back in to report that, yes, the National Weather Service had issued a tornado warning for our county. The pastor told everybody to round up their kids from children's church upstairs while they figured out the best course of action. Again, by means I know not of, they were able to ascertain that there were no active tornados in our county and decided it would be best if everybody went home as a preventative measure. I overheard the pastor say that if our church had a basement, we probably would just go down there and continue as normal.

I was talking with the sound guy about this while we were waiting for more information to be gathered and he wished the National Weather Service wasn't so cautious. If he was running the show, he said he would only active the sirens when an actual tornado was seen rather than just when there is rotation in the clouds (as was the case this morning). His point was simple: the high number of "false alarms" encourages people to disregard the sirens when they do sound.

His point is a good one and my complaint regarding the system is similar: our finest level of resolution for warnings is an entire county. There could be a very deadly tornado dozens of miles from me and the sirens will still go off. In fact, the National Weather Service could be virtually certain that there is no danger to all of Wichita but if there is danger to some part of the county, the sirens will sound.

For better or for worse, most people respond to the sirens by first turning on the TV or radio rather than seeking shelter immediately. In a city that deals with dangerous weather frequently, ALL of the "serious" local TV stations have invested a great deal of money in their weather forecasting equipment, sets, and staff. You can be sure that if the sirens have sounded in Wichita, every one of these stations will be carrying a very in-depth and seemingly interminable analysis. It won't take but a few seconds to figure out what course of action is appropriate.

Lastly, one of the things I brought to our marriage was a Midland weather radio which has been serving us well these past few days. Every hazardous weather watch and warning issues by the National Weather Service sets this thing into loud beeping mode followed by automatically tuning in to the continuous National Weather Service weather channel where the cause of the alarm is explained. The radio is great; even if a tornado came late at night, we would be immediately awaken. On days like today, though, when National Weather Service is issuing warning after warning, it can be quite annoying.

The other advantage of having this radio is that we are never in need of the latest weather forecast, current weather conditions, or weather almanac entry for the day. We have "Misty", our friendly speech-impediment prone, computer synthesized voice who is vigilant in keeping us up-to-date and tirelessly, hour after hour, provides the latest in weather related news. Even during slow weather days, we sometimes tune into Misty to hear her mispronounce words; our favorite is "cloudy".

The Mystery Of Ants

Now this is the kind of research paper I would like to write. Check it out. This guy figured the best way to learn about the physical structure of an ant colony was to pour liquid plaster down it, let it set up, and then dig out the casting. Reading into the article a bit, it sounds like molten metal has also been attempted with varying degrees of success. Fun quote from the article: "Pouring red-hot aluminum in the bottom of a 2-meter pit runs the risk of having ones socks catch on fire from the radiant heat."

I read the abstract of the paper but not the full article itself. For best results, scroll down to the bottom of the article for all the neato pictures. Here's the first and most eye-catching:

Jeff Wenzel

This past weekend a prominent member of our church passed away after fighting a brain tumor for four years. Today was the service for Jeff Wenzel and I was glad to be a part of it. There are a lot of trivial things I could say about the service today and maybe I will some other time.

One significant truth became more clear to me today, though: the repeated Biblical command to care for the orphans and widows is a significant and needed service in the corporate Body. Though I have read it many times throughout Scripture, the reality of what this means moved from a mental exercise to living practice today. Jeff's three children no longer have a biological father to provide for them. The role of fathering, for now, has been passed on to our church body as a whole. I don't know what kind financial provisions are in place but I know a trust was established to help with the education of his children. As one of the pastor's at the service said, "It is appropriate to donate generously." This is probably one of the most significant ways my wife and I will be able to help Jeff's family.

Ironically, Jeff and another member of our church founded an organization here in Wichita ( Youth Horizons ) geared towards mentoring the fatherless children of Wichita. I pray that God will provide good father-figures for his children.

Name That Dot

Just recently I was able to do something I've wanted to do since I moved to Wichita: I used the telescope at Lake Afton Observatory to take a photograph of the heavens. One evening a month the observatory allows anybody with a camera to come and use the telescope for photographic purposes. The subject for the evening is pre-selected and the staff at the observatory provide the hardware you need to connect the camera to the telescope.

Part of the reason it has taken me this long to participate in the program is that it usually takes place at 11pm Sat. night; this is WAY past my bedtime. Additionally, the weather has also stymied a few past attempts. Things worked out great this month, though, as the skies were clear and the shoot started at 8:30pm Sunday night.

As for the quality of the photo, well, I don't have a ton of excuses. It was my first time on the telescope so that didn't help. The heat of the day rising off the cooling ground also added a lot of, uhmm, shimmer making a nice, solid, National Geographic photo pretty much out of the question. Plus, this particular subject is quite a ways away so even through the telescope it wasn't very large.

The mystery object: Venus.

The observatory is doing also Jupiter and Mars this year but I think I may hold out for the moon as I expected the shots to turn out much better.

Stillwater Don't Need No Netflix

This last weekend my wife and I were down in Stillwater, Oklahoma for a two-year old's birthday party (cute pictures to follow soon) and afterward spent some time with my wife's brother, Ben. We decided to watch a movie and Ben suggested we stop by a local video store there in town called "Video Vault". Ben thought I would like the place and he was absolutely right.

Probably the simplest way to describe Video Vault is by saying it is a specialty video store. You could also say that Video Vault is the exact opposite of Blockbuster; in the way that Blockbuster promises to have all the latest greatest movies in stock (or at least they used to), Video Vault "promises" to have a whole bunch of old, odd, and unusual movies you may or may not have heard of, like, say, the Academy award winner for best picture from 1962. They got it. Its in the in "Academy Award" section which is near the "Anime" section which is near the "Organized By Director" section which is near the "Blacksplotation" section which is near the "Date Movie" section which is near the "Rent At Your Own Risk" section (whatever that is).

I'm a Netflix member so that I have access to virtually all the movies found in these sections that don't really fit the summer-blockbuster mold. If I had a store like this in Wichita, I would probably quit Netflix; Netflix provides by mail what this store provides in-person.

By the way, if we have a store like this in Wichita, it isn't in the phone book. We've got Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, a locally owned Blockbuster wannabe, and a bunch of "adult" video stores. (Why does the preface "adult" seem to connote "vice". "Adult beverage" = alcohol, "adult gaming" or "adult entertainment" = gambling, "adult video" = sex and pornography. Kind makes being an adult seem like a license to sin rather than the obligation to be responsible.) This being the case, I'm adding this to my list of potential things to do with my life: open a speciality video store in Wichita.

Rolling Again

After nearly six weeks of being out of commission, I recently got the flat on my scooter fixed and it is up and running again. What I thought would be a relatively simple task (hey, it SHOULD be) of replacing the rear tire turned into a lengthy ordeal. I knew that it would take a bit of work to get the wheel off due to things like the muffler, rear suspension, and rear brakes mounted in that area. When all was said and done, it took two visits from the mechanically inclined friend, borrowing a specialized tool called a "gear puller" from the auto parts store, and taking off a sizable portion of the rear body and seat compartment.

Ironically, there ended-up being nothing wrong with the tire; no punctures or holes of any kind. I took it in to the motorcycle shop, we ordered a new tire, and they called me back a few hours later to say the existing tire was still holding air. I ran back to get the wheel and when I tried to put it back on, I discovered a fully inflated tire can not be squeezed past the engine block to slide all the way down the axle. (This scooter is quickly earning low marks in my mind when it comes to maintainability.) Letting out some of the air and whacking on it with a rubber mallet got it back on. In a few hours I had reassembled the bike and took it out for a test ride: all was good again.

This experience has also brought to light just how poor the quality of this bike is. Several of the bearings I had a chance to inspect in this process are starting to stick and the gear meshing at the rear wheel-axel is fairly loose. "You get what you pay for" and that has played out true here as well. Fortunately, I suspected nothing less from the low price I payed and plan on making the most of this opportunity to become a more knowledgeable mechanic.

This attitude will serve we well in the near future as there is a funny rattle I need to hunt down and a front headlight that needs to be replaced.

No rest for the weary. Or those who buy cheap scooters to save a few bucks.

Frozen River

The river that runs through Wichita is frozen over in some places, including the area right near our place. I was out this Saturday morning exploring and took a few pictures from the adventure. The ice seemed quite thick in some places (maybe as much as two inches) but it was obvious that there were other spots were it was considerably thinner. I was tempted to try to crawl across the river but, given the fact that my intended route took me close to areas where liquid water still existed, I decided against it. The neatest thing I saw, by far, was a school of small fish swimming under the ice. Sadly, none of the pictures I took capture how cool this looked so you'll just have to use your imagination.

Anyway, enjoy the pictures.

To the Parents of Hardy Child

This afternoon our non-existant child received a box of eight books from Scholastic. We have no idea how or why we were blessed with this delivery and haven't quite figured out what to do with it, yet. (My guess is that a certain brother and sister-in-law of mine signed us up but I have not proof of this.)

We carefully read through the invoice and it was very clear that we owe money for this unrequested "introductory package" and had obligations for future book purchases. We haven't opened the package just yet and are trying to decide what do from here. Some of the options:

Do nothing. We haven't ordered anything and to the best of our knowledge they don't have our credit card information (though this may or may not actually be the case). Despite what they would like us to believe, we have not obligated ourselves in any way. Though I feel very confident that we are legally on safe ground that doesn't mean our lives can't be made unpleasant by people trying to extract money from us.

Return the books. Our little invoice lets us know that if we don't want to be members of this club we can simply return the books (they pay for shipping). This would be the polite thing to do and cause the least amount of hassle. For them, at least.

Call Scholastic and pretend to be offended at the implication that we have a child. I could pretend to be frustrated not-yet father who really desires to have a child but haven't been blessed in this way. I could pretend to be gay and make a big deal about how Kansas won't allow for the adoption of children by homosexual couples. I could pretend to be single (this despite what their database probably already knows.) We could pretend to be elderly and only have grown kids. There are all kinds of fun things you could do with this.

At this point, we're probably going to do nothing and just see what happens.

Sticking It To The Man

This past month, much to my surprise, the Wichita city council ruled against a re-zoning request that would have allowed Wal-Mart to build a third store here in town. Wal-Mart already has numerous Supercenters here in Wichita but most are on the edge of town; this was a more central location. I found out about it a few days before the vote and wrote to the council members to let them know that I didn't think Wal-Mart ran the kind of business that had the interests of Wichita in mind. I would not consider myself a wholly anti-Wal-Mart citizen (here are some that are) but definitely lean more that direction.

I wish I could say that our city council sided with the grass-roots efforts to keep Wal-Mart at bay but my reading of the minutes from that meeting (starting on page 98) lead me to believe that the council was more interested in getting the issue settled rather than give Wal-Mart time to work its PR machine to change the mind of the public. Regardless, the re-zoning request was turned down 5-0 and Wal-Mart was kept out of that particular location.

All that leaves is the rest of the city to defend.

Flickr Update

New pictures from Christmas break have been uploaded to Flckr. Enjoy!

Audit #2 Wrap-Up

This second audit turned out to be MUCH simpler than the first. To prepare for this audit, I used the same procedure as last time:

-Assemble all tax related documents from last year.
-Redo the math and make sure the total claimed on the tax return matches the total from all charitable contribution receipts.
-For each charitable contribution, match the donation receipt with a withdrawal from an account (checking, credit card...)
-Compile all this data in a nice spreadsheet to make the job of the examiner easier.

This self-audit revealed a small error I had made in the return and after thinking it over a bit, I decided to highlight this on the spread-sheet rather than hope nobody would ask about it. Honesty with the IRS seemed the most trouble-free course of action. (It turns out that the examiner asked up-front if I had found any errors during my preparation. Unless I wanted to lie, this question pretty much made irrelevant and rationalization I might have had for not mentioning the error. )

I made my way through security and on my ride up the elevator with the examiner, our conversation revealed that I had just been here eight months ago for my 2004 audit. This surprised him and he made a point of mentioning this to his supervisor who was going to sit-in on the audit.

We went through the cursory is-there-any-income-you-are-forgetting-to-tell-us-about questions (Any income from gambling? Trusts? Bartering? Garage sales?) and then proceeded to dig into the issue at hand: charitable contributions. I handed the examiner my spread-sheet and after unfolding it, he spent several seconds looking stunned. I don't know what he was expecting to see but the number of transactions he was going to have to check must have seemed daunting. He slowly turning around in his desk to grab a calculator and, with a sigh, started to ask me about the first item on my list.

At this point, his supervisor jumped in.

"What did you say your 2004 audit covered?"

Same as this one, charitable contributions.

"How did the 2004 audit turn out?"

No change to the filing was made.

"Tell us about the mistake that you found in your filing."

Due to the weird way my church reports my financial donations with them, I accidently counted $65 I paid for men's retreat as a charitable contribution. A closer examination of the receipt clearly shows that this was not a tax-deductable contribution.

"$65? That's it? If that's the extent of the error, I don't see any reason we need to continue with this. Do you have the 'case closed' letter they gave you at the end of the last audit?"

Now I was the one who was stunned. I slowly turned to my stack of folders to find my records from the 2004 audit. I handed the examiner the letter, he went to make photo-copies, and that was that.

As the supervisor explained, the IRS customarily does not examine the same person for the same item two years in a row. My impression was that this practice was not governed by law, but more by some internally-established procedures. If there had been other items of examination in the audit, they would have proceeded checking those and my charitable contributions. He said the computer that figures out who needs to get audited doesn't take into account any previous audits and when it saw my abnormally high charitable contributions, it flagged me and I got a letter. This also means that if I get flagged again in 2006, instead of scheduling an appointment I can simply call the examiner and let him know I've already been examined twice for this item.

With that, I was done. In and out in under an hour. Best of all, I don't have to file any kind of amendment to my return for that silly mistake I made. The fact that I don't have to do any extra paper-work is reward enough for me.

Hail, Sleet, Snow, and Freezing Rain

In the words of the National Weather Service, Wichita has been experiencing a "wintery mix" of precipitation this weekend. As a variety of precipitation has been falling from the sky an old debate between my wife and I has once again emerged: what exactly is sleet?

My stance has been that sleet is the same as hail and the term is a regional one. We in the northwest call it hail, in the midwest it is called sleet. My wife's view has been that hail MUST be larger and must come from a thunderstorm, thus, any winter-time small balls of ice must be sleet. After much thought and a little bit of digging on the internet, I am here to say that while there is validity to both views, hers is more correct.

Both sleet and hail are balls of frozen water; in this sense, I am correct. My wife, though, is correct in that the process for these two forming is quite different. Sleet is rain that has frozen on the way down. Hail DOES form during thunderstorms and is also frozen water but it circulates in the thunder clouds, gaining mass until the winds cannot keep it aloft any longer. Sleet must be small, hail can be large.

For the sake of complete-ness, snow is water vapor that freezes directly to a crystal, freezing rain is liquid rain that freezes on contact with a cold surface.

In the final assessment, Wichita has experienced sleet, snow, and freezing rain but will have to wait for this spring for the hail.

Power On Start-Up

At my brother's request, I measured the power consumption of my computer during start-up. As I kind of guessed, power usage is relatively variable, anywhere from 65W to 105W. Using my finely honed real-time, eyeball-powered skills, I would say the average during the whole process was around 90W.

Scooter Flat

I got my first flat tire on my scooter this morning. I don't think that flat was there when I started but coming around a corner not far form home I was certain something was up with the rear tire. I pulled over and confirmed my suspicions. I wasn't too far from home so I decided to just push the bike back; this took more time and effort than I would have guessed.

My wife gave me a ride to and from work and when I got home I took a closer look. I can't identify what caused the flat but I was thankful to see that getting the rear wheel off won't be as difficult as I would have imagined. Hopefully this weekend I'll be able to get everything working again.

You know you're a nerd when....

This Christmas, I requested and received something that many of you will find highly nerdy and not all that interesting: an electrical power meter. I have long wondered just how much various items around the house use (home electronics, mainly) and I now have a way to measure and see for myself.

First up, the computer. Instead of shutting my computer (iMac G5) down every time I am done using it, I put it into "sleep" mode. The display turns off, the disks spin down and the computer appears to be off except for a pulsing heart-beat-like light below the display. Power consumed in this state: 9W. Considering most house-hold incandescent lamps are 60W or greater, this is not much power at all. Overnight in the state, my computer consumed 0.08 kW-hrs. Even at $0.10/kW-hr, this is only pennies a month to avoid the hassle of shutting down and restarting my computer every time I want to use it.

Other misc. measurements I made on the computer:

-The display can be set to turn off after a period of disuse. The display consumes about 15W at full brightness. This is a lot less than I expected considering...
-During my normal usage, my computer consumes about 70W. This varies quite a bit depending on what I'm doing but the normal email, web-surfing, typing all weigh in about the same.
-When I'm doing processor intensive work like photo-editing or DVD-rendering the computer consumes about 110W.

I'll be measuring other stuff and probably (maybe) post on it later but I'll leave you with this one highly practical tidbit: those compact florescent lamps REALLY DO use a lot less energy than incandescent bulbs. The ones I've measured have all met their advertised power consumption. These light sources consume only 14W and provide the light of a 60W incandescent. Do us all a favor and go out and get yourself some of these for all the high-usage areas of your home. They'll probably pay for themselves over the life of the bulb and provide the warm fuzzy that you get when you save energy.

Well, at least I do.

Audit #2

Our mail was on hold while we were out on Christmas break and, due to Gerald Ford's death, we didn't get our mail until Wednesday. Waiting in the stack on my desk was a little letter from our friendly neighborhood IRS office.

Yes, once again, I am being audited.

The last audit was for my charitable contributions during the 2004 tax year. This audit is for contributions during 2005. I guess the good news is that I haven't filed my 2006 return so I can't be audited for it. Yet.

I don't know what to make of this. Katie thinks that once you're audited, you stay on the IRS watch list. I'm skeptical but don't have a better guess at this point. I haven't started to assemble the documents yet but I'm not very worried. Additionally, since I've done this before, I have a pretty good idea what to expect.

Two audits, eight months.

Sheesh.