The Random Yak

If I’m not careful, this could turn into a feature.  (Only in all likelihood, he’d want to write it, and then we’d all be in trouble.)

Last night, while discussing fiction with The Random Spouse and Yak the Younger, the Younger made an interesting comment.

“The problem isn’t that there aren’t good books being published, it’s that all the good books being published seem to have really terrible endings.”

He was referring to something I’ve started calling “Winston Syndrome” – for the unfortunate volleyball companion from the Tom Hanks movie Castaway.  (Note: it took me months to realize that isn’t a title, it’s a descriptive instruction for what we should do with the film.  Consider yourself warned.)

If you haven’t seen the film, and care about spoilers…don’t click.  I’ll see the rest of you after the jump.

(more…)

See below for a new one from me, click through here (to the Gray Lady, of all places…yeah, I need a chemical shower just for posting the link) to one of the best, and funniest, photo essays I’ve seen in a long time.

Need an example?

Yarr! There be gremlins under the bed!

Christoph Niemann’s piece, “Haunted Household,” not only discussed the various grues and gremlins that wander through my days, he manages to get them on film.  A little bit of awesome in your Wednesday, I promise.

This morning, while looking for something to post (despite the continuing weeds) I noticed it was national “Cell Phone Tape Day.”

Now, back when I carried a cell phone – and I admit, it’s been close to a decade since I carried one – breakage was a problem.  At the time, I was in-house counsel for a service-provider-who-shall-not-be-named, and a free mobile phone was one of the perks of the job.  (It also meant they could reach me any time, any where, for any question from the field, so yeah – these aren’t the perks you’re looking for.) The phone in question was a high end flip-style phone (cutting edge at the time, though it’s the kindergarten model now) and occasionally breakage did happen.  Not my phone (it didn’t get used enough) but in the department and especially among the tower techs, it was common to see phones held together with duct tape until the company issued new ones.  Nobody paid much attention.  If it worked, it worked, and to a certain extent a phone sporting a strip of electrical, duct or other industrial tape kind of said “Hey, I’m a working phone, you don’t like it, Louie and the boys will come explain a few things.”

Since leaving that job, however, I admit I hadn’t seen much cell phone tape.  (Haven’t heard them referred to as “cell phones” in a while, either, since most people now call them something else entirely.)

In my deliberately-fostered ignorance of all things mobile-phonesque, I wondered whether a cottage industry had grown up of which I was unaware.  Tape to repair broken cell phones, perhaps in a variety of matching colors and/or patterns?  (Admit it, in your darkest moments you realize there’s Hannah Montana tape out there somewhere.)

As someone who frequently fails to understand the modern urge to toss out things the moment they get chipped, to say nothing of broken, I admit I was pleasantly surprised.  Someone out there not only found a way to fix cell phones, but the idea caught on!  The ancient, silver-striped phones of my (relative) youth had given birth to a whole generation of fixers.  My heart was proud.

Until I took a closer look at the 2010 holiday list and realized that the observance isn’t today, it’s tomorrow, and it isn’t “cell phone tape day,” it’s cellophane tape day.

And so, in the immortal words of Emily Litella….

… nevermind.

A Canadian teen who wanted to wear a kilt to his High School graduation ceremony found himself a bit off-kilter after the school principal rejected his proposed attire.

Hamish Jacobs’ family emigrated to Canada from Scotland in 1965.  In recognition of his Scottish roots, he planned to borrow an uncle’s kilt and wear the family tartan to his High School graduation.  The apparently polite and obedient Jacobs asked the school Principal’s permission to wear the kilt, but was denied.

According to the linked story, Jacobs had a genuine desire to wear the kilt (which, incidentally, is still appropriate male attire at formal functions in parts of Scotland) to honor his ancestry and upbringing – which, apparently, had a substantial Scottish influence.  His family was proud of the decision.  The school was not.

I can understand a school implementing a dress code for graduation, and forbidding students to wear clothing that would disrupt what should be a solemn and important day.  That said, if the school isn’t requiring a uniform (and if it was, nothing in the article said so) and refused solely because the kilt isn’t pants (which I suspect) then the Principal called this one incorrectly.  If students are permitted to select their own graduation attire, they should be allowed to make choices which (within appropriate bounds) reflect their heritage and their personalities.

Yes, this may require a little more supervision on the part of adults-in-charge, but if the school doesn’t want to take the time, there’s always the good old cap and gown (which I suspect has reached such favor in the United States partly because it does eliminate the dress issue altogether) or a similar uniform requirement.

Don’t even try to tell me that allowing a kilt would “require” the district to grant every special request, either.  This isn’t even close to “allowing boys to wear dresses” for reasons too numerous to mention.  In the end, it boils down to “do you have a legitimate reason to ask to wear this item of clothing, which for the record is accepted male dress in your family’s country of origin” – and in Jacobs’ case, the answer is yes.  I wouldn’t expect the school to forbid a Sikh to leave his turban home or a Muslim girl to uncover her head.  Yes, the difference there is religion, and not just culture or heritage, but if a student wants to memorialize an important day with a reasonably pertinent nod to the parents who got him (or her) to graduation day, I say let them do it.

Besides … he ate haggis, for crying out loud.  The boy deserves some recognition.

On Saturday Yak the Younger and I let TRS sleep in and headed to San Francisco for a morning of dim sum with friends and a visit to the California Academy of Sciences.  Sunday after church, I spent 5 hours edging and weeding the new lawn, fighting off the invading Bermuda grass (which was lying in wait under the driveway, thinking that I wouldn’t stay on top of it).  All in all, an excellent weekend, with more than a few lessons learned:

1.  Two men in a carnation-pink camaro requires revocation of someone’s man-card.  (And seriously shames an otherwise decent car.)  (Note: the fact that said car was seen in San Francisco does create the opportunity for audience participation, on the order of “Add Your Snark Here.”  Be advised, the degree of difficulty on this particular snark-portunity is zero.)

2.     A group of 50+ leather-clad biker-types are not nearly as intimidating when they’re all riding…scooters.  (And yes, there was at least one pink one and a couple in powder blue.  Rock on, you rebels you.)

3.  Leafy sea dragons are as cool as the nautilus is creepy.  The Academy of Sciences has both, in living cool-and-creepiness.

For the record:

Leafy Sea Dragon

Nautilus

4.   Watching a Nautilus at close range becomes increasingly creepy as you stand in the darkened room, expecting at any moment that it will punch its tentacles through the glass and eat your face.

5.  Having the thought that a nautilus might punch through glass and eat your face is probably indicative of reading too much science fiction.  (I understand they only chew ears, not faces, which explains the nickname: “Tyson-of-the-Sea.”)

6.  Spending a couple of hours weeding and edging your lawn (by hand) produces very nice results.  Spending five hours weeding and edging your lawn (by hand) produces marginally better results, crippling hand pain and public ridicule.

7.  The public ridicule is worth it.  (The pain, not so much.)

8.  Taking advantage of the opportunity to spend a leisurely morning with friends, a leisurely afternoon with your son, and a stress-free weekend enjoying your life, rather than succumbing to the thousand-and-one-things-I-must-do-when-not-working is highly recommended.  If you haven’t done something similar lately … it’s long overdue.

(Leafy Sea Dragon image Courtesy of Wikipedia Creative Commons, by user Fastily, use permitted under Creative Commons Attribution – Share Alike 3.0 License.  Nautilus Image Courtesy of Wikipedia Creative Commons,  use permitted under GNU Free Documentation License.)

I’ve always been a fan of the old story about the child walking along the beach tossing starfish back into the ocean.

The starfish, left behind when the tide receded, were making their way toward the water, now too far away to reach before the sun’s rays baked the life from their slow-moving forms.  The child walked along the beach picking up the starfish and tossing them back into the water, one by one.

An adult stopped the child to point out the futility of his task.  “Look at how many there are,” the adult said, pointing at the line of creeping starfish up and down the coast, tracing their desperately slow trails as far as the eye could see.  “Most of them will die.  You can’t get to them in time.  Even if you did, they’ll just be back on the shore tomorrow.  You’ll never make a difference.”

After listening in silence, the child bent down, picked up another starfish, and tossed it back into the water.  With a knowing smile, he looked at the grown-up and replied, “Made a difference to that one.”

Earlier in the semester, I posted a blog entry that started off fuming about the general apathy (to put it mildly) that characterized the students in the college course I’m teaching this semester.  More than half didn’t even bother to study for the exam – or so their scores suggested.  (Arguably, anyone who studies even a little should be able to score more than 35 points out of 100.  I had ten below that mark.) Deciding to focus on the ones for whom I could make a difference, I pressed on, refusing to allow myself discouragement in light of the ones who did not only well, but brilliantly – and thereby proved I was not actually wasting my time.

Flash forward another six weeks, and on Monday my students took the final exam.  Last night I started grading.  As expected, a number have done poorly.  How poorly, only time and completion of the grading will tell.  (I grade all the exams one page at a time – page 1 of all exams, then page 2 of all exams, etc to ensure uniformity.  It also helps me not to pay attention to whose exam I’m grading at any given moment.) But last night, as I started grading, a few exams began to stand out.  Some, as expected, because their producers failed to study, with the expected results.  Some because their owners did remarkably well.

And then there was one that stood out because I didn’t expect it.  An exam that contained some mistakes, but also showed a remarkable level of understanding on more than an average number of topics.  I noticed this one in particular because it made some mistakes that seemed out of place in an otherwise solid showing.  Since the school doesn’t use blind grading, I flipped to the front cover and took a look at the name.

The exam belongs to one of the students who performed the worst on the midterm.  Someone who showed less than no inclination to spend any time or effort paying attention.  Someone who I could tell was disappointed in the midterm grade, and who showed initial signs of real concern thereafter, but made no visual attempt to change.  The student still sat with the same group of students as before, and engaged in the same behaviors that made it appear this student (gender withheld to protect the guilty) would go from failure to failure without really caring much – and probably reviling me as a martinet (or, more likely, a lower-scoring verbal analogue).

Instead, this one changed.  Instead of winding up beached in the scorching sun of a final exam that could negatively impact the student’s educational career, this one decided to study. This one actually learned something from the midterm, and learned a number of other things in time to reveal that knowledge on the final.

This one is going to pass.

I’m always pleased to teach the students who want to learn.  The ones who study hard, perform well and generally make teaching an enjoyable experience for the person at the front of the room.  The ones who actually care about knowledge gained as much as the letter on the report card.

But every once in a while, a student surprises you.  A surprise you never expected, and one you never forget.  I don’t know if this student’s new-found dedication will last beyond the boundaries of this course, or whether the encouraging note I intend to write on the final exam will have a lasting impact.  But for one brief – and in my case, lasting – moment, I can say with great joy:

I made a difference to that one.  (And that one made a difference to me.)

There once was a yak with a blog,

who spent days in a sort of a fog,

but on the twelfth of May,

(which is Limerick day,)

The Yak’s entry was kind of a dog.*

* Yeah, it was the best I could do on short notice.  And without forbidden four-letter words.

Spoken on the way to a business law course last night:

“You know, Oreos are the bacon of dessert foods.”

“They make anything better.”

Wisdom, indeed.

(May 10-17, 2010)

A few long-forgotten favorites that came to mind this week (for unusual reasons I’ll disclose in the parentheticals):

1.  Animals Should Definitely Not Wear Clothing – Judi and Ron Barrett.  If you haven’t read this one, and you have small kids, it’s a must.  The porcupine in the flowered dress on the cover pretty much says it all.  I read this until it literally fell apart…and then some.  (Came back to mind when Fat Lily the Cat tried to hide under a blanket.  Unfortunately for her, she also thinks “if my head is hidden no one can see the outrageously large other end – which probably needs backup beepers or a flag to comply with local ordinances regarding the movement of large objects.”)

2.  Sylvester and the Magic Pebble – William Steig.  Taught me Important Life Lesson #32: “When in the presence of magic objects, it is inadvisable to wish you were a rock.” and its corollary, 32(a): “Probably best just not to wish you were a rock at all.”  (Blame the pastor for this one coming to mind.  He had the ushers pass out rocks at the start of service on Sunday, without explaining their intended purpose.  After I recovered from the initial disappointment of learning we weren’t actually bringing back stoning (probably due to a lack of volunteers)…my next thought was in the “magic pebble” vein).)

There are many, MANY others I’d recommend, but those are the ones floating around in my mind lately.

Many years ago, sci-fi writer and blogger John Scalzi (with whom I share certain interests, if not a worldview) initiated a writing prompt known as the Weekend Assignment.  More recently, a pair known as “Karen and Carly” have taken up the mantle, and for want of something better to do with a Friday afternoon, I’ve decided to stop lurking and start playing along.

This weekend’s assignment:  A discussion of the change in social patterns, and a response relating to “where [insert name here] does the most off-or-after hours socializing.”  For extra credit: “Do you hang out with your co-workers after hours.”

As it happens, my response probably makes a strong argument for the Internet’s power to shift social patterns.  Most of what I’d call my “pure social interaction” time takes place in one of two places:  (a) at Church on Sundays, or (b) online, during the week, via either Ventrilo or World of Warcraft.  The latter seriously outweighs the former in terms of total hours spent.

In other words … Yes, I’m a geek.

In my own partial defense, most of my friends live in places too far away to easily get together any other way.  Free, online chat options like Ventrilo (one of the more popular with gamers, though by no means the only one) have largely replaced the telephone, at least for me, when it comes to social interaction.  Vent in particular has the added benefit of hosted “rooms” where multiple people can take part in the conversation, making it much more like a group get-together than a limited two-way telephone call.

Combining Vent with online gaming, like World of Warcraft, essentially offers a modern take on the old poker night.  10-to-25 people, meeting up to play online for a few hours while simultaneously chatting it up via headset.  It’s the same kind of smack-talking round table you’d see at a poker game (or in some  other guilds’ cases, a locker room) but everyone plays from the relative comfort of his-or-her mom’s basement.  (Yeah, that last bit might have been a joke.  Maybe.)

For those of us who live in different states, or those with small children who go to bed early, I’ve found Vent+WoW to be a pretty ideal situation.  Babysitters are expensive, and leaving one spouse at home with the kids while the other romps happily through the underbrush tends to reduce “Spouse Faction” far below the point at which you’d actually like to come home.

Ironically, I’d say virtual gaming and communication has actually increased my social activity significantly.  We still enjoy getting together with friends when we can – and do with some regularity – but the reality of modern life is that the old cocktail party is largely becoming a thing of the past.  Real people just don’t have the time, funds or energy to get together the way they used to, and when the reality is that your good friends are scattered over half the country, cocktail parties just don’t fly.  (Unless everyone else does, and let’s be honest, my spare room isn’t that big.) But vent does.  Along with anyone who’s done enough quests to hatch a proto-drake.

As an additional bonus, The Random Spouse and Yak the Younger also play, which means it’s a family affair…and before you lambast me for my digital proclivities, ask yourself how many fourteen year olds voluntarily spend time hanging out with their parents and thinking their parents are cool…and then quietly admit to yourself that I win this round.

Extra Credit:  Yes.  But in my case, my co-worker (singular, as I see it) also happens to be a good friend, and was before the current work situation arose, so the question doesn’t  really say anything special about my preferences.

Came to the office today with every intention of putting up some kind of entertaining, pre-Mother’s Day Weekend (hi mom!  Happy Mother’s Day!) post.

Four hours later…I still got nothin’

Don’t take it personally.  It’s not you…it’s me.

heh.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there.  Here’s hoping someone does something very nice for you.

In this case, literally.

The Bible recounts the life of a young man named Joseph, who had an impressive pair of dreams at the age of 15 or 16.  In the dreams, sheaves of grain and stars representing his older brothers (as well as the sun and moon, representing his parents) bowed before him, signaling that in the future he would rise to more importance than the rest of his family.

As usually happens, this news didn’t go over well with the rest of Joseph’s family.  His brothers first thought to kill him, but settled for selling him into slavery.  (After all, why commit a mortal sin when you can commit a lesser sin and turn a profit in the process!) Joseph spent the next 15 years of his life (give or take) as a slave and a prisoner – all of it under circumstances which made it less than likely, by worldly standards, that his dreams were anything but the fantasies of a youthful mind.

Until, in prison, Pharaoh’s servants had dreams, which God enabled Joseph to interpret – and some time later, the dreams came true.  Even then, Joseph remained in prison (though perhaps with a renewed hope that his interpretation of his original dreams might not have been mistaken).  But then, the year Joseph turned 30, Pharaoh himself had a pair of dreams that nobody could understand.  Nobody but Joseph, who was called from prison to tell Pharaoh what he knew.  Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh, but as a result of the interpretation God allowed Joseph to give, and Pharaoh’s gratitude for the enlightenment, Joseph became the second most powerful man in Egypt – then the most powerful nation in the world.

Joseph’s dreams came true.  (Literally, if you read the rest of the story…but I’ll refer you to Genesis 40 et seq and let you read it for yourself.) And he had to wait a very, very long time for it to happen.

I have often wondered how Joseph managed through the dark days (and months, and years) when it seemed almost impossible for God’s promises to come to pass.  I imagine him standing in a prison cell, staring at the stars, praying and reminding himself that nothing – nothing – is impossible with God, no matter what the world says or thinks about it.  I consider how the people around him must have laughed at his faith, or dismissed it with shaking heads.  Joseph, you fool.  You’re a prisoner and a slave.  The only things bowing down to you are the sheaves of wheat your scythe cuts down.

But Joseph knew what God had told him, and he never lost faith that God was true.

Recently, I prayed a very serious prayer about some things I know to be true, as clearly as Joseph knew the interpretation of his dreams (and not much less impossible, if looked at by the world).  Like Joseph, I am waiting and trying to remain obedient and faithful until they come to pass.  Like Joseph, the years are passing, and like Joseph, I have reached the point where faith and patience are a matter of choice.  My faith is not weakened by the passage of time, but at some point we must decide whether or not we still believe our understanding is correct.  I have made that choice.  I still believe.

But last week I began to pray about these things I know to be true, and asked – if it wasn’t inappropriate, or too much trouble, or outside the rest of the Master Plan – if I could have some reassurance, some indication that I had in fact understood these things correctly, and that God had heard my prayers.  If it wasn’t too much trouble.  Some kind of little sign.

Every night for a week, I prayed this prayer.  I prayed it in confidence, knowing that I would continue to believe even if I didn’t receive a sign, but also knowing that the Bible tells us to place everything before God in prayer, because he cares for us.

This morning, the sign came, in an unexpected and dramatic form.  I received news that another prayer – one I now confess I prayed more from diligence than from belief that my words would make a difference (though I truly wanted them to make a difference, and hoped they would, I just considered the matter very, very difficult to achieve) – was granted, in a fashion that was nothing short of miraculous.

When I heard the news, I almost fell out of my chair.

I can’t tell you the exact nature of the proof at this time – that story isn’t mine to tell.  I can’t tell you – yet – the deeper things that prompted the prayers in the first place, though in time I may not have to.  Like Joseph’s dreams, they will be evident to all who know me when they actually come to pass.

But I would shirk my duty if I didn’t post to confess the truth I learned again this morning, in a form much more dramatic than I ever expected to see.

God is there.  He is listening, and when you speak, He hears you.  I will not hate you if you don’t believe that as I do, but if you don’t I offer you this challenge:  Try.  Sit down tonight, and tomorrow, and the next day, and say an honest prayer to the God who answered the prayers of the Yak – the Creator God of the Universe.  Ask Him to prove to you that He exists, and that he’s heard your prayer.  Don’t ask it as a challenge, or a dare.  Ask it from an honest wish to know if I spoke the truth.

He’s already promised He will answer.  Try it and see.

Not that I’m complaining, mind.  I had a pretty good childhood, all things considered, and my parents did let me paint the interior walls of my walk-in closet when I was in junior high school.  (And I mean painted as in scenes of dragons and other mythical beasts, in acrylics, not ‘grab a roller and paint one color on the wall’) Which, I must confess, was both really cool and typical of the way they liked to give me the freedom to express myself in reasonable and creative ways (which probably contributed to an overall increase in the Power of the Snark but also increased control over its outbursts).

That said: this connect-the-dots wallpaper almost makes me wish I had a child young enough to buy it for.

Almost.

But not quite.

Still, I’d put it in the category of something I’d totally approve-of-and-encourage-friends-to-do.  At least with children old enough to know the difference between “walls I can draw on” and “things that change the color of my bottom.”  (Statistically, 92% of you got that last reference.  The others don’t have kids.)

Cleaning out the lint trap spam filter this morning, I came across something I had to read twice.  Then I read it a third time, just to be sure.  The spam “comment” link, which somehow attached itself to yesterday’s “put the candy bar down and step away slowly” entry, linked to a hunting website – and did so under the heading, “Taxidermy: How to Stuff a Giraffe.”

Let’s all sit still for a moment and let that idea sink in.

…

OK, discuss.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I didn’t realize this had become a problem.  I knew everyone had a baby kangaroo (yours is pink but mine is blue) but the growing “what to do with the dead giraffe in the corner” issue completely escaped me.  I admit I’m not all that observant, so I must have overlooked it.

After all, it’s a giraffe, not an 800-lb gorilla.

But while we’re on the subject – anyone know how to stuff one of those?

(On a tip of the horns to Slashfood:)

Legislators in Louisiana have rejected a pair of proposed bills that would have regulated “healthy” versus “unhealthy” foods and banned Louisiana residents participating in state food stamp-type programs (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) from using state assistance funds to purchase “unhealthy” foods.

Thank you, Louisiana, for taking an important stand on individual freedom and against the nanny-state ideology.

I understand that people don’t always make good choices about what to put in their bodies.  Or on their bodies.  Or around their bodies.  In fact, people make astonishingly poor choices every day, in such large numbers that it’s something of a miracle the human race hasn’t humiliated and eaten itself into oblivion. That said, one of the fundamental notions upon which the United States was founded was the idea that each person has the right to eat, sleep, think and work as he or she sees fit (with reasonable exceptions necessary to maintain public order and prevent literal suicidal/homicidal/maniacal tendencies).

In shorter words: if I want to stuff myself with M&Ms, french fries and root beer, in the comfort and privacy of my own home, that’s my right as a free, adult citizen of these United States.  If you don’t like it, shove off, skippy.

Now, I’m not saying these choices come without consequences.  If I do elect to maintain myself on nothing but sugar, peanut butter and booze, my health will probably suffer.  And yes, as the Louisiana legislator responsible for the bill pointed out, to the extent the state is responsible for my medical care, the state pays the penalty for my lack of foresight and/or common sense.

Wherein lies the real solution to the problem. (more…)