Thankful For and Thankful To - Again

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I hope this holiday finds you well, and that you are able to spend it with family or friends or both. Today's blog is a reprint of a little essay I wrote last year about the meaning of "thanksgiving." If you don't feel like a Small Sermon today, feel free to stop reading and go enjoy your day. You deserve it!

=======================================

Thanksgiving is a special holiday. Though we are taught to be thankful all year round, having a day set aside for feeling thankful helps focus our gratitude.

Of course, it has become "Turkey Day" to some, and "Football Day" to others, but in general, with families & friends gathering together, many people do still focus on the thankfulness.

Interestingly, though, at Thanksgiving, people primarily talk about the things they are thankful FOR. This, of course, is perfectly natural. To feel thankful, people need to feel they have received something for which they can give thanks.

For me, there are too many blessings to count and list, but I would certainly start here:

I am so thankful for my family. Words cannot express it. Though I try. I am also thankful for the friends I have, especially for those who think about me frequently, providing me company when I laugh, care when I need it, and conversation - in person or over the network. I am thankful for my work, for my home, and for the beautiful world in which we live.

But I am not done with this Thanksgiving message. I want to continue on to discuss the full meaning of giving thanks.

Here is the first definition of "Thank" from from Dictionary.com:

thank

–verb (used with object)

1.to express gratitude, appreciation, or acknowledgment to: She thanked them for their hospitality.

And for good measure, the definition of "Thanks" from the same source:

thanks (θæŋks)
—pl n
1.	an expression of appreciation or gratitude or an acknowledgment of services or favours given

In both of these definitions, there is a clear message which is glossed over by many, but it is worth considering. The definitions make it clear there is someone who is thankful, and someone who is receiving the thanks, because the latter did something for the former.

So, if you are thankful, who are you thankful TO?

Yes, I am thankful to the people in my life who make my life so blessed. And if that's as far as you go in your faith, then be sure to thank the people in your life on Thanksgiving. For, just as a secular Christmas is to be more about giving than receiving, a secular Thanksgiving should be about being thankful, and to be thankful, there must be someone who deserves our thanks. With that in mind, look around at all those people who have made your life better, and express your appreciation and gratitude as you celebrate your Thanksgiving.

To carry the message a bit further, people of faith should pause to recognize that what we have been given, the materials and relationships for which we are thankful, are not merely gifts from people, but gifts from God. The original Pilgrims were not thanking one another. They were thanking God.

If you explain to a child the concept of Thanksgiving -- that we are grateful for the many things around us -- and ask them to list those things, they will often lists parts of nature. The sun, the air, the water.

If a person has no faith in a creator, then there really is no one to thank for these things. Such a person can feel lucky to have them, and they should, but they cannot truly be thankful, because they have no one to thank.

But for people who believe in a God, today is the day to thank God, as the true source for all of these blessings. Even the blessings which appear to have come from people are truly an expression of God's love towards us. And for this, thanks are appropriate, and a form of blessing in themselves.

Lord God, Creator of all, Source of Love and Blessings, on this day of Thanksgiving, we thank you, above all, for the gift of life and for the gifts we receive in life. We especially thank you for the people in our lives who show us love and kindness. For these, and for all, we are truly Thankful. Amen.

A happy and blessed Thanksgiving to you all.

NaBloPoMo No

I suspect that no one has noticed but ....

NaBloPoMo -- National Blog Posting Month -- is November.

I participated in writing daily blog postings each day in November in 2009 and 2010.

But not this year.

Three basic reasons:

1. I have been busier this year than in previous Novembers, largely because of work.  (But I don't blog about work, at least not here in Snippets & Wisps.)  This has left me precious little time for relaxation and creativity.  Despite what it might sometimes appear, this blog does take both time and creativity. {Self-Deprecating Compliment Fishing Alert!}
2. My creative efforts this fall have been devoted to other things, most notably a Dungeons & Dragons quest-based campaign I've been writing and running and using my cool tablet to draw maps for.  {Sentence-Ending Preposition Alert!}
3. I truly like to blog with positivity.  There has been some less-than-positive mind-mud clogging up my creative gears of late.  When I sit down to blog, I get all serious.  Serious is not inherently bad -- some of my best Advice and Small Sermon writing is serious -- but when clogged with negaslimeocity, my "serious" comes out negative.  {Invented Word Alert!}  So rather than write negative, I choose not to write.

I ought to point out that there is one reason which is categorically not the reason I am skipping NaBloPoMo this year.

That non-reason?

• It's for girls.

Just setting the record straight.

Great Course - Big History

My latest Great Course was
Big History: The Big Bang, Life on Earth, and the Rise of Humanity taught by Professor David Christian, D. Phil, Oxford University, Macquarie University.

Several of the Great Courses I have taken have been History in one form or another. It's clear that, to truly get a comprehensive understanding of a subject, one must often consider its context, which means learning some history. This was true for some of the science courses, and certainly true of the music courses.

Well, this course is advertised as a History course, but it is also much more than that.

"Big History" looks at the history of everything, from the beginning of the Universe to today. On the way, you cross disciplines from Cosmology to Astronomy to Physics to Chemistry to Geology to Biology to Archaeology before ever reaching what people typically call History.

Dr. Christian has several thematic elements in this long course, so I will mention three which made the material interesting and meaningful, but I will also recommend this course in its entirety, because I cannot possibly hope to convey all the ways in which various disciplines shed light on others.

Complexity: The "history" of the universe, right down to the modern age, has shown that -- while the second law of thermodynamics (increasing entropy) is true when considered universally, there are points at which complexity increases, rather than breaks down. It is in those increases in complexity that "stuff happens." Stars are more complex than random gases. A stars complexity produces effects which the gases of which it is made do not, when on their own. One of the effects is the creation of other elements. Another effect is the creation of energy.

Throughout Big History, we see more complexity giving rise to new capabilities which did not exist before the new complexity arose. Stars. Planets. Life. Societies. It's all very instructive, and sometimes there are striking parallels between rises in very different kinds of complex arrangements of matter.

Collective Learning: Dr. Christian argues that the differentiating feature for humanity, as compared with all other animals, is not tool making/use (as was once accepted) nor is it communication per se. It is our ability to use communication to learn from one another in a collective, lasting way. The progress we've made as a species, toward mastering more and more of the energy which is put into our environment, and using that energy to enhance our species's success in the world, is a direct result of collective learning.

Thresholds: The course is organized around eight major thresholds, each of which represents an increase in complexity. They are, for my future reference, and to whet your appetite:

• Creation of the Universe - 13 billion years ago (13.7, I think is the number he uses frequently)
• Creation of the first Complex objects - Stars - 12 billion years ago
• Creation of chemical elements inside dying stars
• Creation of planets- Earth is roughly 4.5 billion years old, and its the only planet we can currently study closely
  
• Creation of life on Earth - 3.8 billion years ago
• Creation of homo sapiens - ~250,000 years ago
• Appearance of agriculture - 11,000 years ago
• Modern Revolution - 300 years ago

Within each major threshold, subordinate thresholds exist, as well. The structure of the course provides a wonderful framework which leads us through the scientific disciplines I listed above, and also lets us see the parallels as complexity increases. Furthermore, the huge scope of Big History pulls us away from the typical study of history with a regional or national emphasis, and shows us important aspects of life, the universe and everything (with respect, Mr. Adams) which we typically miss when focusing very closely on a particular time period or population.

I can't recommend this course highly enough. Oh, if you cannot abide a purely scientific view, you might be annoyed at times, but you will learn something. And if you want your history to be focused, well, this might not be for you. and, I suppose, if you know a great deal about one specific scientific discipline or another you might be frustrated by the summaries which Dr. Christian has to use of your expertise. But for an overview of the knowledge we have gleaned by our collective learning during these 250,000 years of humankind's existence, this is a superb piece of work.

--blank--

NaBloPoMo was a lot of work. No post today. Come back tomorrow.

Games during NaBloPoMo

Well, this year's NaBloPoMo is basically complete, and I haven't posted much about games during November, 2010. I'd be remiss if I let the month go without some significant mention of gaming, since it definitely is one of my biggest recreational activities, and the way I see many of my friends.

The month started with a small Texas Hold'em Poker night. Our typical Hold'em nights have been on Saturdays, and we almost always play two. This time, we played on a Thursday, so the Dudes could not stay as late. We played one game. [Don won.] There were only six of us, and we all kept chips for a surprisingly long time. Lots of cautious play. I hope we can do this again before too far into 2011. One game just didn't seen like enough. Still, it was a fun Dude Night.

And the four of us who decided we could stay up a little longer played some Guitar Hero. I only own Guitar Hero because it was a way to get instruments for Beatles: Rock Band, but the Dudes have been patient in playing Beatles music with me, so I figured this time the supplemental Guitar Game could be one which had music they knew better.


Ticket to Ride: Europe was the game of choice for the second Dude Night of the month. Only four of us could make the night, and Eric arrived late, so we started the evening playing a little Super Mario Bros Wii. Don has always enjoyed the arcade style (scrolling, 2D) Mario games, and this is one that can be played cooperatively. I don't know why I never thought to play it with the Dudes before, but we had some fun bouncing off each other, teaching the new players to Bubble to safety and so on.

And, once Eric arrived, we went downstairs to one of Sherry's crafting tables, which is also a perfect gaming table for a big game like TtR:E, and proceeded to have Eric beat us at two consecutive games. Ticket to Ride: Europe is such a fun game. As I've discussed before, I really enjoy games that allow all of the players to make progress towards goals, even if they don't win. Eurorails and Ticket to Ride games are great examples of this type of game.

My personal gaming has been mostly Civilization IV with the Beyond the Sword expansion Mike gave me last Christmas. I've bumped the difficulty up high enough now that it is really a challenge. I've had to abandon (concede) two recent games because I had not planned well enough in the early stages of my civilization. In one, I had even run out of money (something I never do at lower difficulty settings) so my people would not work for me. I need to learn more about what items in the game cost me money later on, and I need to ensure I build enough revenue-producing features early. In easier difficulty settings, growing population was the key, but I think in this higher difficulty setting, I need to balance population growth with commerce, and I'm not nearly as proficient with that as I was in Civ III. I enjoy the challenge of learning this complex game.

Movie Micro-Reviews - Edition 62

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1	83	Very faithful in theme to the first part of the book. The isolation forced upon, and felt by, the three main characters is well represented. Definitely the middle part of a three-part story begun in The Half-Blood Prince. I can’t imagine ever watching this without watching Part 2 quite soon afterward, if we have the choice. And when seen in that context, I might raise its rating.
Star Trek: Insurrection	90	For pure fun, great effects, episode-like story, this was wonderful. Not so much acting, and a few story-logic problems.
Secret Life of Bees (The)	74	A 14-year-old girl in North Carolina in 1964 had a horrifying experience as a young child, and is now in a loveless, abusive home. She runs away, with her caretaker, and lands in a house run by August Boatwright, played by Queen Latifah. This was a touching movie, with believable relationships and a sweet heart, though it sometimes breaks your heart.
City of Joy (The)	51	Somewhat disjointed, mediocre storytelling. I think the writers tried to put too much in, from an original book, and it didn’t have the impact they wanted. Another movie that makes me think I would never want to visit India. Not a complete waste of time, but more like a TV movie.
Star Wars	99	Simply the best.
Iron Man 2	85	A blast! Action fun! Whiplash was an excellent villain. Sam Rockwell plays another sleazy character. Are there too many characters? Nah. But let’s all hope Black Widow can take a bigger part in the ultimate Avengers movie that must come.

Hey Baby, It's Cold Outside

It's cold in Minnesota again. Hey, it's that time of year. We know what we're getting into when we live in this place.

Today I dredge up a photo from winter '85. It may be cold here, but we know how to keep our kids from freezing! I think Adam rebelled against this sort of padding for years, once he could choose what he wore.

Favorite Foto Friday - Devil's Tower

Another of the photos from our summer vacation in 2000, with the Norwegian relatives. Oh my, was it hot. But Devil's Tower is spectacular.

Thankful For and Thankful To

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I hope this holiday finds you well, and that you are able to spend it with family or friends or both. Today's blog is a little essay I wanted to write about the meaning of "thanksgiving." If you don't feel like a Small Sermon today, feel free to stop reading and go enjoy your day. You deserve it!

=======================================

Thanksgiving is a special holiday. Though we are taught to be thankful all year round, having a day set aside for feeling thankful helps focus our gratitude.

Of course, it has become "Turkey Day" to some, and "Football Day" to others, but in general, with families & friends gathering together, many people do still focus on the thankfulness.

Interestingly, though, at Thanksgiving, people primarily talk about the things they are thankful FOR. This, of course, is perfectly natural. To feel thankful, people need to feel they have received something for which they can give thanks.

For me, there are too many blessings to count and list, but I would certainly start here:



I am so thankful for my family. Words cannot express it. Though I try. I am also thankful for the friends I have, especially for those who think about me frequently, providing me company when I laugh, care when I need it, and conversation - in person or over the network. I am thankful for my work, for my home, and for the beautiful world in which we live.

But I am not done with this Thanksgiving message. I want to continue on to discuss the full meaning of giving thanks.

Here is the first definition of "Thank" from from Dictionary.com:

thank

–verb (used with object)

1.to express gratitude, appreciation, or acknowledgment to: She thanked them for their hospitality.

And for good measure, the definition of "Thanks" from the same source:

thanks (θæŋks)
—pl n
1.	an expression of appreciation or gratitude or an acknowledgment of services or favours given

In both of these definitions, there is a clear message which is glossed over by many, but it is worth considering. The definitions make it clear there is someone who is thankful, and someone who is receiving the thanks, because the latter did something for the former.

So, if you are thankful, who are you thankful TO?

Yes, I am thankful to the people in my life who make my life so blessed. And if that's as far as you go in your faith, then be sure to thank the people in your life on Thanksgiving. For, just as a secular Christmas is to be more about giving than receiving, a secular Thanksgiving should be about being thankful, and to be thankful, there must be someone who deserves our thanks. With that in mind, look around at all those people who have made your life better, and express your appreciation and gratitude as you celebrate your Thanksgiving.

To carry the message a bit further, people of faith should pause to recognize that what we have been given, the materials and relationships for which we are thankful, are not merely gifts from people, but gifts from God. The original Pilgrims were not thanking one another. They were thanking God.

If you explain to a child the concept of Thanksgiving -- that we are grateful for the many things around us -- and ask them to list those things, they will often lists parts of nature. The sun, the air, the water.

If a person has no faith in a creator, then there really is no one to thank for these things. Such a person can feel lucky to have them, and they should, but they cannot truly be thankful, because they have no one to thank.

But for people who believe in a God, today is the day to thank God, as the true source for all of these blessings. Even the blessings which appear to have come from people are truly an expression of God's love towards us. And for this, thanks are appropriate, and a form of blessing in themselves.

Lord God, Creator of all, Source of Love and Blessings, on this day of Thanksgiving, we thank you, above all, for the gift of life and for the gifts we receive in life. We especially thank you for the people in our lives who show us love and kindness. For these, and for all, we are truly Thankful. Amen.

A happy and blessed Thanksgiving to you all.

I Had That Nightmare Again

It's been quite a while, but I had "That Nightmare" again.

There are various bad dreams which seem to be common among groups of people. While it is not the worst nightmare I have had, the most common nightmare I have is one I know I share with many other people:

I forgot to go to class for an entire semester!


For a studious person, such as I was and am, it's easy to see how any anxiety going on in my life might be translated into this sort of dream. For my formative years, the idea that I might get to the end of a semester and suddenly realize that I had never gone to a specific class, so I was bound to fail -- well that would have seemed the worst sort of horror. To be called a failure, to be embarrassed like that, to have let bad memory or bad decisions hurt my reputation -- it would have been awful.

Which means, of course, that I never experienced the kinds of real horrors which would fill my dreams if I had ever had to live through them - disaster, physical abuse, death of close loved ones and so on. I'm sure, if I had dealt with those as a young person, new nightmares would have replaced this scholarship-centered one.

Nevertheless, this is a dream that causes me panic. It has been a very long time since I had this nightmare. I suspect that Sherry attending college again put that academic environment in my head. And then I have two big work-related things surrounding my Thanksgiving vacation, making it somewhat hard for me to just relax into and out of the long break. Given those two factors, I can easily see why my sleep was disrupted.

Sure, it makes perfect sense. Now. When I am awake.

But during the dream -- well -- panic and fear and sweat and grasping for excuses -- it overwhelmed me. It might not be Freddy Krueger, but for me, but it's pretty close.

Sweet dreams, everyone.

Disconnected

To call my home internet service through Charter "spotty" would be kind. It is reliably unreliable. I cannot make it through an entire evening of using it without having to go down to my router and reseting it at least once. [No, it is not my router's problem. Believe me. I have some skill in this area. To help prove my point consider: I set up the network in Sherry's apartment, with a very similar router, but with Comcast as her ISP, and it has never, ever failed. Ever.]

Last night was even worse than normal. At 7:30 PM (just after I had finished connecting to work on it) it stopped working. I went through the normal recycling of the router. That didn't work. I reset the modem and the router. That didn't work, either. I left all three pieces unplugged for a good long time, and started over. No luck. Finally, I decided I could handle being disconnected for an hour or two and I just left them all off, played some Civ IV, watched Stargate: Atlantis, and tried not to think of all the blogs I was planning on writing.

Finally, at 9:30, I plugged it all in again, and .... NOPE.

So I decided it was time to call Charter.

I got through the initial maze of options, and finally on the queue for a support person. Of course, I had to go on hold. No matter. I brought my phone up to the TV and watched more Stargate, listening to the TV with one ear while the other heard the "on-hold patter" -- "Do you know most of your internet questions can be answered by visiting Charter.com and reading the Frequently Asked Questions?" Not very likely, Ms. Recorded-Voice, when I can't freakin' connect!

My phone keeps track of how long you've been connected to a number. 35 minutes later, after hours of listening to the repeated scripts Ms. Recorded-Voice is forced to foist on us, she just stopped. Nothing. No music. No patter. Nothing. I must have waited longer than their on-hold system thought anyone would ever wait. So I had that satisfaction. I outwaited them.

But it did me no good. I went to bed without checking Facebook, or e-mail, or blogging. I felt like a modern-day hermit, I tell you. [No offense intended to the hermits who might be reading this.]

Thankfully, I am mere hours from spending a couple of days in Sherry's apartment, where [as I said before] the Comcast network seems to be infallible.

So if it fails while I am there, I will know that Internet technology has decided to shun me, and I will go off the grid. I can take a hint!

Review: Nova

Title: Nova
Author: Samuel R Delany

In the 30th century, humans have spread to hundreds of worlds in the galaxy. Many aspects of human life have changed -- it takes a few days to cross unimaginable distances, communicable disease has been wiped out, work is done by plugging a person into machines. But some aspects are very much the same -- mankind's territories are separated based on complex cultural, historical and economic divisions, poverty and prejudice still exist, and the lengths to which the ultra-powerful will go in competition with one another is as incomprehensible to the common people as it is likely to affect them.

I found this book several months back and put it on my shelf of books I hadn't read but wanted to read. Well, imagine my surprise when I started reading it and began to vaguely recognize the story.

I believe I started reading this book years ago, and something interrupted me. I'm quite sure it was not boredom. I'm also quite sure I bought it because its author, Samuel R. Delany, wrote one of the best books I read in my youth, the Hugo- and Nebula-award winning Babel 17. It is a worthy successor in style, imagination, character and plot.

Nova has two main characters, and a third one critical to the story telling. The one we meet first is Mouse, a poor teenaged gypsy with a speech defect and a exceptional skill entertaining others with an instrument which projects three-dimensional, multi-sensory illusions. The second is Lorq von Ray a scar-faced rich man from one of the most powerful families in the known universe, who has a spaceship, and a quest. This second hires the first, along with a crew of people from several worlds, including the third character, Katin. Katin's knowledge, love of talking, and fascination with the artform known to us as the novel clearly identify him as the author's voice.

As with most science fiction from this era, digging deeply enough can find parallels with the politics and society of the day. But as with the best, Nova does not make those parallels obvious, or even the center of the story. The mystery is central. The characters and their relationships drive the action. The science fiction concepts enable the themes to be carried in a unique way, and for this reason they are indispensable, without being distractions to the modern reader.

Nova is a worthy representation of the good, hard science fiction which helps establish the genre as literature worth reading. But I am now convinced I must find my copy of Babel 17, or buy a new one, and read it once more. As good as Nova was, I'm hoping that Babel 17 is what I remember -- a master work by a true author.

Skol, Vikings

Yeah, so I was going to try to do a serious faith-based blog for one of the Sundays in November [otherwise known as NaBloPoMo] but I can't do it today.

Today is the annual Vikings/Packers game at "The Dome" and by the time this is posted, Lucas, Adam, Dad and I will be in our seats. I'll be yelling. [I always do.]

Last year, I was so excited for this game. This year, I have a feeling of dread. Last year, the season was magical. This year, it's a disappointing train-wreck. Technically, if we win this game, we still have a chance. Realistically, since we haven't won a road game in over a year, a win this week will just be for pride.

But still, that's what I want. A win for pride. A reason to hope, if only for one more week.

"Skol, Vikings, let's win this game...."

Stuck in the Middle

When you travel very rarely, a trip on an airplane can be fun. I remember some of my first flights. I was excited. I wanted to sit near the window, and I spent much of the flight looking out the window at the sights. Back then, it was cool. [And shouldn't it still be? A blogger can't let this topic go without linking to Louis CK's "Everything's Amazing and Nobody's Happy" can he?]

Well, I don't want to be part of the trend Louis CK spoke about. I merely want to comment on the situation some semi-frequent travelers find ourselves in.

If you travel for business, you know that after flying enough miles [one might even say too many miles] you reach a special level in a frequent flier program where you become eligible for special treatment by the airlines. I've never been at one of these levels, but I've traveled with a few colleagues who are, and the perks are very nice. Not only are there quiet, comfortable lounges to spend time [with little snacks and coffee and nice restrooms] but these privileged fliers also can be upgraded, or even change flights, without extra fees.

I have absolutely no problem with this. Frequent business travelers put up with frequent inconvenience. Even with this special treatment, airports are like cattle yards, airplane seats are designed for people the size of a typical 10 year old, and only the ultra-privileged who travel first/business class have seats that don't cause appendages to fall asleep. [Oops. I'm complaining. It's Amazing. Really. {Sorry, Louis.}] They deserve their perks.

My situation, though, is that I have been flying pretty frequently this year; far more than I ever have before. But I am not at one of these special levels yet. I am caught in the middle. It's a strange situation. Part of me wants to fly a bit more, so I can finally get some of the sweet treats I've seen. But the more rational side of me realizes that, on the whole, that would still put me in airports and airplanes far more than it would put me in nice lounges. It's like I have these two little spirits, one on each shoulder, arguing about what I should want, and I'm stuck in the middle.

That's why, when I flew home last week from Vegas, it did not surprise me when I had to pay an extra $50 to change flights. Oh, it might seem illogical. You see, I had been asked to move off of my scheduled flight (1:30), to a later one, because my scheduled flight was overbooked. For this trouble, the airline would pay for my ticket and give me a voucher for future travel. Apparently it was worth it for the airline to give me hundreds of dollars of value to inconvenience me. But when I discovered I could get on an earlier flight (10:30), increasing my convenience while also freeing up space on their overbooked flight, not only did I not get compensation for helping them, I paid for the courtesy. Had I been at one of those special frequent flier levels, it would have cost me nothing. Had I been a less experienced traveler, of course, I would not have known to ask. I was stuck in the middle.

And so, when I got on that earlier flight, giving myself a chance to spend 3 fewer hours in the Las Vegas airport, you can imagine where my seat was on the plane.

Yep.

Stuck in the middle.

But am I complaining? No, of course not. It was Amazing! Really. [Really?] {Sorry, Louis.}

I'm just sayin'.

[Well, OK, I guess I have to embed this.]

Favorite Foto Friday - Haleakala (or Mars?)

On our 25th Anniversary cruise, one of the excursions we took was to ride bicycles down from the top of Haleakala volcano on Maui. At the top, the view of the crater was surreal. I immediately thought that it looked very much like the photos sent back from Mars. [Except for the slight blue in the sky, which got brighter as the morning progressed.] Stark, beautiful, mysterious.

Quotes - Madness and Art

"You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it."
Robin Williams

I found this quote in the Kid in the Front Row blog. The blog is about filmmaking. I loved the quote, because it's about much more than filmmaking.

And then, right above where the blog author put that Robin Williams quote, he had this marvelous paragraph.


The world may seem like it's run by the people who greenlight superhero movies, and maybe it is. But meanwhile, there's a lot we can be doing and we don't need to feel oppressed, or depressed; or like outsiders. Instead, we can just make art and whether our audience is ten million people, or ten; that's exactly how it's meant to be right now and that's enough. Those ten people love you, and they're gonna tell all their friends, and their friends are gonna do the same.

Earlier this week, my good friend Mike needed to hear this message. And there are times when I think Lucas would be helped by it. And I am quite sure Leah will. In fact, we all do -- all of us who indulge our creative desires, as well as all those who don't indulge them for fear of too small an audience.

Just make art.

TV: Family Guy & Voices

If you read my snippet last week, and if you were confused by the ending, then you don't know Family Guy. [Or you didn't expect that I knew Family Guy. {Or I didn't do as good a job with the surprise ending as I wanted. (Rats.)}]

I only recently started paying attention to it. [I know. 12 years into this irreverent, offensive, rude, funny show.]

But one thing I didn't realize until I started watching it was the number of actors I know who are voice talent on the show. Mila Kunis, Adam West. Nana Visitor. Seth Green. Gary Cole. Jennifer Tilly. Patrick Warburton [one of the most recognizable voices on TV, in my opinion.] And it looks like I've missed some good guest stars, too. Patrick Stewart as himself. [Oh, he was so funny as himself in that scene from Extras.]

It was only a couple of years ago that I recognized how many actors must make their living doing voice work. I still get surprised when a well-known actor is "hidden" behind a cartoon character, though. I shouldn't, but I do.

I now have a couple of comedies which can almost certainly make me laugh within a few minutes. Scrubs. Family Guy. Who knows what else might make me laugh.

[Just think. If I gave it a chance, I might even like South Park.]

Memory - Photographic Proof

Another memory-related post today. [Memory fascinates me.] And this time, it's thanks to a photograph, rather than a TV show. Here it is.



Cute boys, no?

Well, certainly. And when I uploaded this photo, that's what I noticed.

And when I was looking through my Flickr photos again to decide if I should use this as a Favorite Foto Friday photo, I also noticed the bed in which they lie. Sherry and I built that bed.

And now, on the third look, I see what many people probably notice right away. The Star Wars wallpaper.

Really? Did their room have Star Wars wallpaper? I asked Sherry. She didn't remember it either. But there it is.

When we bought that first house, I'll bet we thought it was cool that there was Star Wars wallpaper in the room which was to become Adam's (and later Adam & Lucas's when Sarah came along.) But now, 25 years later, we didn't remember it at all. Good thing we had a photo to remind us, eh? Because sometimes, that's what it takes. These memories of ours are remarkable, but they let things go. [Good thing, or we all would suffer as Jill Price does.] Still, I'm quite surprised by some of the things I have forgotten. Star Wars was my all-time favorite movie for years, and certainly when we bought the first house. Adam was my first-born son. [By this time, he had seen The Empire Strikes Back. {More than once, I think.}] And I didn't remember this feature of his room.

I think I will remember now.

Movie Micro-Reviews: Edition 61

It's time for Edition 61 of my Movie Micro-Reviews. Three of the six this time I had not seen before, and three I had, though A Clockwork Orange was in the distant past. I've liked Malcolm McDowell since seeing this. I don't know that he has ever been better, but I've never seen him have a weak performance.

And I finally saw Dogma. Glad I did. Not a "Sherry movie."

Oh, and I was very surprised to like (500) Days of Summer so much.

Gothika	57	It was a good movie to watch on Halloween, with some mystery, some startling moments, some supernatural elements – or were they? But all-in-all not as good as I had hoped.
Clockwork Orange (A)	86	A classic. Glad I saw it again. The questions it asks are timeless. What price liberty? What humanity without choice? Does selflessness really exist? The images are garish. We should avoid this, but can we?
V for Vendetta	93	Such atmosphere! Such a message! And “V” is one of the most memorable characters ever. [First reviewed in Edition 5.]
(500) Days of Summer	77	Good. Quite good. Not what you expect, but definitely satisfying. The story is told in flashes forward and backward, and the male lead is recognizable to many young men.
Dogma	67	Extremely creative and fantastic view of religion, faith, God and God’s created beings, and quests. In many ways, excellent. But, honestly, the language was too much. It detracted, for me, from the story. Other than that, I’d own it. If the language were more vital to the story, it would be fine. I just didn’t see it that way.
Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring	100	What can I say. The mood is perfect. The story hangs together. The characterizations are charming and thrilling. The effects enhance and draw you in, rather than amaze or distract. Fantastic.

Breakfast - a Time or a Menu?

This comic strip reminded me - a few weeks ago, we ate the evening meal (sometimes dinner, sometimes supper, around here) at a Baker's Square restaurant. I mentioned that I had been thinking about pancakes for a couple of weeks so I thought I might order them.

I received some disbelieving looks from my dinner companions -- at least, from the ones who were not in my immediate family. "Really? Pancakes? For dinner?"

I guess we're weird. We've had pancakes, and waffles, and eggs, as "dinner" entrees quite often in our family. In fact, I'm quite sure my we did the same thing when I was growing up. This does not seem unusual to us, but we get skeptical reactions from most people when they find this out about us. [Imagine! How unconventional! Scandalous, I tell you.]

I wonder how these traditions get started, and then turn into conventions, and then even into expectations.

Part of the reason, I'm sure, is the dichotomy of "morning people" and "late night people."

We're "late night people" in our family. [OK, not so much Sarah anymore -- she has to be up so early to teach -- but if left to her own devices, who knows....] School-day mornings were timed to the last second, with an efficiency that would never have been possible if a meal needed to be cooked, served and consumed. [To this day, my "breakfast" is a small, plastic kiddy glass {left over from a Bible School in the '90's} filled with a high-fiber breakfast cereal. {Who has time for sitting down and eating?}] Weekend "mornings" completely disappeared for our kids most of the time, especially once they reached double-digits in age. We had to wake some of them up for lunch, for goodness sake [and a certain teenage son of mine was quite often unhappy about being woken up that early.] If we never ate pancakes except at "breakfast" we'd never have eaten pancakes!

I really don't think we are so strange. We just recognize that a food that is good at 6:00 AM is equally delicious at 6:00 PM. And, you're awake to enjoy it!

So don't look at me so funny when I want pancakes for dinner.

[And I won't mention our habit of having popcorn for dinner sometimes. As the entree. With a homemade shake or smoothie as the drink. Yummmmm.]