a few 4th of July Pictures

Just a few 4th of July pictures. They are from this weekend actually. Saturday night.
Madison has this HUGE fireworks festival called Rythm and Booms. They estimate around 200,000 people attend. We went the first year, we threw down a banket close enough that it rained ash on us the entire evening. But the crowds, and the stress trying to get out of the place, and being nervous anytime your kid is more than 5 feet from you.... just wasn't our style.

So now we sit across the lake at the Memorial Union at the UW.

We get there early. Get a decent table. Play games, eat ice cream, drink a little beer and read a lot. It's perfect for us. We watch the fireworks across the lake, and we have no problem whatsoever leaving. (the year we went down to the actual show we waited in line for almost 2 hours to catch a shuttle bus back to our car).

It was a good day all around.

did you just say "parakeet"?

We were a the park this weekend.
The weather has been absolutely perfect. In the 80s, sunny, a little bit of a breeze, low humidity.... perfect.
Sarah and I grabbed a table and broke out the cribbage board.

Ashley went over and introduced herself to the other kid playing there. She was a few years younger than Ashley, but that was okay, Ashley is pretty flexible that way.

We kept half an eye on them as we played cards. They settled in to a game where Ashley was the "mom" and the other kid was the college student, and they played out there version of empty nest syndrome, helicopter mom-ing, and abandonment anxiety there on the playground.

The other girls Mom was sitting on the other side of the playground by herself. We (the parental parties involved) gave a good natured wave to each other. Kinda that.... "i'm cool with our kids playing together, and I'll keep half an eye on your kid, if you keep half an eye on our kid" wave.

About half an hour in to our cribbage game, just as Ashley was saying "but if you go to college here in Madison, you'll have to come have supper with me once a week, okay?" the other mother caught my eye.

She was sitting on her bench, her eyes closed, her face tilted up towards the sun. She was listening to her daughter play, her soft smile would curl a little bit more when her daughter giggled. There was something about that moment.

God, I don't even know... Without knowing her, or anything about her at all, I felt connected to her. And I felt happy for her.
That sounds trite.
It was one of those moments that a writer obsesses with for weeks trying to put words to. That an artist tries for years to capture, and that a photographer, if she is lucky, sometimes manages to capture in that perfect frame.

I'm none of the above. But I did have our new digital camera along with us, and I tried to be subtle about grabbing a quick image. It doesn't really capture the moment (i'm so jealous of people who can take great photographs. god I wish I could. My Dad has been a good amateur photographer all his life, and my brother is an amazing photographer, but not me. That's not a pity play, just an honest assessment of my abilities. I know what i want to capture, but never seem to. I just take a TON of pictures, and sometimes i get lucky)



The picture doesn't do it justice. There was some larger truth in that moment. Something about happiness not being the day to day crap that we all have to trudge through to pay the bills, clothe our kids and out a little away for the christmas season.

Something about the notion that happiness is being able to find contentment in a warm sunny day when your daughter is playing with a new friend and the sun is falling just so across your cheeks. Existing in the moment, letting that contentment fill you up like a glass overflowing, and then taking it back with you into that drudgery. Letting that contentment sustain you until you can fill yourself up again.

Something like that...

nostalgia and comfort food

(that's cheap red wine in the corona glass)

zoom zoom zoom

The bike ride home from work today was the hardest one I've had so far.

I remember the first day that I rode in this summer thinking, "huh, this isn't that bad, maybe I'm not in bad of shape as I thought."

And the rides haven't been that bad. I'm not going to say they're fun. I wouldn't say that any sort of exercise if "fun". I'll just never be that guy. I ride my bike in to work for two reasons. The first, and the weaker reason to be honest, is because i think it's the environmentally right thing to do. I drive my car less, i spend less on gas (i've only saved $15.75 so far this summer though. And my bike has been a constant stream of acquaintance needs, flat tires, busted derailer, needed a new safety light, new helmet...)
and I'm not clogging up the roads with another car.
I can do it, so i should.

The other reason, and the larger (ha ha i made a pun) is my weight. Or not specifically my weight, but the health problems it brings when I don't watch it. I have two pretty specific breaking points. And the lower of the 2 I get kidney stones. When I was above that weight I was getting a kidney stone every three months. That sucked... a lot. And the other breaking point, about 10 pounds above that, seems ot be when i get my pancreatitis attacks. I've had one big one, and two pretty little ones. Let me tell you, next to pancreatitis, kidney stones are like a warm cuddling session in january.

So I'm motivated.

I haven't weighed myself since I started biking this summer. I wanted to give myself a nice big surprise. I was saving it for a day when i was stressed and needed a littel pick-me-up.

I've been biking since the 2nd week of June, I've put on about 90 miles. Not a huge accomplishment, but for a guy who can only associate the word 6-pack with the Taco Johns 6 pack and a pound deal... it's not so bad.

Today was stressful, this week has been stressful.
The ride home was dreadful.
It was hot and humid, and for the first time when I got off my bike, my legs shook and I felt like crap.
So i shower and weigh myself.
and....
are you ready for it?
are you trapped in eager anticipation?
are you on the edge of your seat?
are you saying "good cheese christopher, just frikkin tell us already?

fine, here it is...
I gained 3 pounds.

yup, i gained 3 god damned pounds.
Sarah said it's probably muscle.
I don't know if I believe that.
And even if that's true... what the hell is the end game here?
I slowly become this knot of sweaty stocky muscle?
I wanted to lose weight. And without that, it's going to be hard to stay motivated. There's already this little part of me thinking of reasons I should just drive in tomorrow.
It might rain...
It's going to be humid...
I could get home quicker.
I'm worried about my tire going flat again (2 flats already this summer)

I think those little voices have always been there, but I've been able to shout them down with "I'm getting in shape damnit, leave me alone!"

Union Utopia

Two people are meeting for the first time. They are talking awkwardly. He's been watching across the terrace for almost an hour. Drawn to her for the book she's reading and her little round glasses. He's wearing athletic socks and sandals. His skin is evenly and naturally tanned and his hair shaven close to his head He has the little goatee and the sharp dark eyes of an equator intellectual. And yet he fidgets terribly when he compliments her.

Two people are saying good-bye for the last time. They are hugging and smiling and wishing each other well. Numbers have been exchanged. They'll call once they are there, and settled in.... they say.

But they never do. Four years of friendship fades in to fond memories with a sliver of guilt.

Someone in the crowd is falling headlong in to unrequited love.

He brushed by her in the line for ice cream. She isn't wearing perfume, but her dark skin smelled like the lilacs beneath the window of his childhood bedroom. He's only had two honest to goodness girlfriends in his life. He's from a small town, all corn fed, farm fit, and drunk on the city. He didn't know that he could fall for a girl with skin so dark. He'd never thought about it. He'd never ruled it out, but he'd never thought about it either. And yet, as he watched her walk away, her hips swaying beneath a backless summer dress splashed with reds and blacks and yellows, his "union utopia" ice cream dripping and forgotten onto his fingers, he lost his heart to her.

There is a girl out there somewhere - her dark hair piled on top of her head - a few loose curls have accidentally fallen to perfectly frame her face. She's wearing her favorite shirt - the one that makes her feel beautiful without looking trashy. And for the first time in her life she is feeling a dark hatred that burns to hot she forgets to feel the pain.

She's deep under the shadow of the big oak tree. You'd miss her if you weren't looking for her. She's looking out across the terrace. Her eyes don't burn. They are flat. - they aren't kissing, they aren't even touching. But he's leaning towards her, nodding in time to her every word while she twirls a blond strand of hair and dangles her high heeled show from her foot.

There's a young girl, she's maybe 11 or 12, sitting at a table by herself. She's reading "How to Survive Middle School" though she hasn't turned a page in 10 minutes. She has her own table, her own soda, her own bag or Dorritos, her back pack on the table top, her cell phone left out and carefully positioned so that it is visible even though it never rings. She's trying very hard not to glance at her parents two tables over.

A couple in their 40s holds hands, squeezing at the same moment without speaking a word as they both look at the steps to the theater.

A tall man in dreadlocks and headphones nods his head and wonders where he'll sleep tonight.

A girl smiles and waves and she approaches a group of sorta-friends, determined not to be alone tonight.

A boy, full of confidence after his first year of college, turns up the collar on his shirt and walks like he's in a movie.

A man in his middles.... sits in the shade and scribbles furiously in his journal. Like a child with his hand in a stream trying to touch everything that floats past.

it' pronounced like "meet-ch-ya"

...Friedrich Nietzsche walks into a bar, orders a beer, and drinks it. The bartender asks if he would like another. Nietzsche says, "Are you out of your mind? Did you see what happened to Descartes?"

i don't get it either....

but maybe Nietzsche was never meant to be a comedic prop.
...or was he?

Check out the Nietzche Family Circus page

it takes a random Nietzsche quote and puts it with a random Family Circus comic.

here, let me show you a couple. but first, let me warn you that i'm about to go overboard... in a big way

my potential summer reading?

I found a list of the Top 20 Geek Novels over on the Gizmodiva blog
I don't know if I'm more ashamed of how many I've read, or by how many I have yet to read.
...maybe I'll make reading the remainder of the list my summer reading goal. Anybody wanna start a Geek book group?

---

#20 Trouble with Lichen by John Wyndham
#19 The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson
#18 The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
#17 American Gods by Neil Gaiman
#16 The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick
#15 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
#14 Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks
#13 Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
#12 Watchmen by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
#11 Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
#10 Microserfs by Douglas Coupland
#9 The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett
#8 Foundation by Isaac Asimov
#7 I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
#6 Dune by Frank Herbert
#5 Neuromancer by William Gibson
#4 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip Dick
#3 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
#2 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
#1 The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams